Eye of the Dragon
by Ultimagu
Summary: Watch as the world of Chiron is thrown off center by the emergence of an eighth faction! The first story in the Brianback series.
1. Prolouge

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

******Review Commentaries:**

**RMcD94:** Thank you for the suggestion! Now I remember where I read the suggestion for _Divine Intervention_. It helped so much!

**Numbuh six-sixtysix:** I know, I know...the grammatical and spelling errors of my first stories still make me cringe despite having done away with much the error thus far. I hope you continue to enjoy reading my fanfiction and the Betty's lost their mental capabilities. I don't know how to explain why it happens but he orchestrates it that way. (shrug).******  
**

**(Story)**

Seven factions stood in delegation with one another. They stood there in a circle around a single open area for a speaker to deliver messages to everyone, or in the rare event a case needed to be heard out. It was rarely used for either however, as the whole room was well served with private messages for all the diplomats of the World Council to stab one another in the back.

In the year of 2474, it was the University that currently held much of the room in its political hold. With so many discoveries being made across the, and in the orbitals, of Chiron, it was with a doubt the University that held much sway over the delegation room. It did not hurt that University troops, after the University-Morganite Vendetta, had held much sway in the northern hemisphere. Of course, there were a few corners of the world still not under the sway of Provost Zakharov and his colleagues, such as Corazon Santiago and her Spartan Federation.

At the same time, the Gaians dominated much of the Monsoon Jungles, and much of the land around there. It was the Morganites, who held on bitterly to the vast wastes east of there, and their few, very precious few bases west of the channel that fed much of the Morganites.

The Believers held their sway of power up near the Ruins on Planet, but had been held back from ever expanding too far by the large Spartan faction just south of them, and the even larger Peacekeeper faction that held sway across the channel, in the area south of where the University had blasted the Morganites out of their industrial cities. Finally, the Hive, centered around Mount Helen, were near the bottom of the rung, only just above the Morganites who were barely above the Believers in terms of strength and production capabilities.

The waterways were not necessarily free from control, but it was a generally accepted practice to limit water bases, to keep trade flowing. Everything had settled since the time of arrival. Now, the world's leaders had fallen into the exact same trap that had captured Earth's leaders in its last 100 years. With Planetbusters held within every faction's warehouses, did you ever dare risk vendetta? Of course not.

There had been a total of four vendettas to take place since Planetfall. Not all of the vendettas we as equally important or overly special, but they truly explained a lot as to how the factions ended up with the territories they currently inhabited: not to mention, obviously, the territories they didn't have.

First off, in a further review of the past, the seven factions had landed and expanded from seven points. Zakharov had landed on the medium sized island to the north, eventually named the Island of Dunbar. Morgan had landed in the northern plains of the Eastern continent. Deidre had landed right in the monsoon jungles. Chairman Yang had landed at the base of Mount Helen. The Spartans had landed on the northern rim of the Fresh Water Sea. The Believers had landed midway up the neck of the western continent. And the Peacekeepers had landed right dab in the middle of their own continent, conveniently in the middle of the world.

As time progressed and the factions expanded their sphere of influence, the first war came between two the Believers and the Spartans. The Believer-Spartan Vendetta, had been the first, and probably shortest Vendetta. It had consisted of the Believers being pushed back several hundred kilometers, and after bribing their way out of a total conquest, the Believers were no longer a major power, but continued to straggle along behind. That had been way back in mission year 2134.

Fortunately when the Peacekeepers breached the sea in 2135, their presence affirmed for both sides that the other was real and the well-placed bribe allowed Corazon to keep her new territory, and it allowed Miriam to keep her, now, pitiful faction.

We come around to the year of 2219, and the Peacekeepers want to expand across the Mouth of Hercules, otherwise known as the Hercules Channel, separating the tail of the Western continent, and the southern underbelly of the Central continent. The Hive, however, had other thoughts on this matter, as they were already settled there. With a Vendetta lasting for nearly 80 years, with brief bouts of wild pandemonium and sickly battle reports, it all ended when the giant sized Spartans had ordered both of them to basically cut it out because they were interfering with Spartan trade. This had been the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta. That was in the mission year of 2298.

Peace reigned for around half a century, when in the year 2349, the Morganites and the Peacekeepers spark off a vendetta concerning the northern territories of the Central continent. The Peacekeepers, still a little tuckered out from their last vendetta, gave a very good fight, but had been no match for the more heavily armed and trained Morganite soldiers.

It is in the year of 2382, that the University launches a surprise attack on the Central and Eastern continent's northern shores, both of which belonged to the Morganites. The University-Morganite Vendetta was marked with an absolute slaughtering on both sides. However, the weapons of the University had prevailed over the aging Chaos weapons. The University had shown at the end of the vendetta, that being a bunch of geniuses couldn't hurt all the time as they manipulated the Morganites to surrender all claims to the fertile lands of both areas: vast northern plains of rich mineral deposits and fertile valleys.

Leaving the world in its current geographic state:

_**It did not hurt that University troops, after the University-Morganite Vendetta, had held much sway in the northern hemisphere. Of course, there were a few corners of the world still not under the sway of Provost Zakharov and his colleagues, such as Corazon Santiago and her Spartan Federation.**_

_** At the same time, the Gaians dominated much of the Monsoon Jungles, and much of the land around there. It was the Morganites, who held on bitterly to the vast wastes east of there, and their few, very precious few bases west of the channel that fed much of the Morganites.**_

_** The Believers held their sway of power up near the Ruins on Planet, but had been held back from ever expanding too far by the large Spartan faction just south of them, and the even larger Peacekeeper faction that held sway across the channel, in the area south of where the University had blasted the Morganites out of their industrial cities. Finally, the Hive, centered around Mount Helen, were near the bottom of the rung, only just above the Morganites who were barely above the Believers in terms of strength and production capabilities.**_

For that matter, it also left the world in its current political state:

_**Seven factions stood in delegation with one another. They stood there in a circle around a single open area for a speaker to deliver messages to everyone, or in the rare event a case needed to be heard out. It was rarely used for either however, as the whole room was well served with private messages for all the diplomats of the World Council to stab one another in the back.**_

_** In the year of 2474, it was the University that currently held much of the room in its political hold. With so many discoveries being made across the, and in the orbitals, of Chiron, it was with a doubt the University that held much sway over the delegation room. It did not hurt that University troops, after the University-Morganite Vendetta, had held much sway in the northern hemisphere. Of course, there were a few corners of the world still not under the sway of Provost Zakharov and his colleagues, such as Corazon Santiago and her Spartan Federation.**_

So where does that leave us? When and where does that leave us? In the year 2474 inside the World Council auditorium. It was here that the current council was debating on raising commerce; make the people become a little more comfortable with each other. The only ones who seemed to have any objections were the Morganites and the Believers, both because they had been shoved to the side on the matter. To be a Believer, meant to lose early, and keep on praying. To be a Morganite, meant to become big, risk it all, and damn the market for crashing.

It was here that an oddity occurred. Somebody opened the doors leading to the central circle of the council room. To make matters even more interesting, it was three men who were apparently soldiers that stepped into the room. Not only they did they make it evident that they owed allegiance to no one in the room, as members of a certain faction are required to bow or salute to their section in the circle above them, but they also wore uniforms unlike any of the factions standard military get up.

On their body the soldiers wore green and pink uniforms, much like the Gaian uniform, except it had a dragon's face painted on the back, like the Hive's Chinese dragon. When the soldiers entered the room, they gave no salute and no bow, they didn't even look for someone they should know to salute towards.

The council of delegates were brought out of their stupor by the sight of the three soldiers when the one in the middle, the obvious leader of the three before them spoke up in a gruff voice. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," he sounded just like a host from old Earth talk shows except he also sounded like he wanted to kill you, "I have a special bulletin to bring forth to all of you, representatives of your obvious and most prestigious of factions. 10,000 of your citizens, have become tired of your gallivanting ways, and have declared Independence. This eighth faction, has decided to call itself Eye of the Dragon, or the Dragonites. This is not a matter for the council to decide if it should be allowed, it has already taken place. Thank you," and with that the three stood at attention and left. All three of the men were gone before security could lay a hand on them.

Had they known what kind of scattered chaos they left behind, they probably would've run for their life.

That is because, in the council room when the stupor had worn off, absolute chaos erupted. Not many liked the idea. There was no need to become like the 265 old nations of Earth which had slowly splintered off from just 90. They were better off with the seven factions they had now; in fact, fewer factions would be better all around.

After chaos slid around the room like a well oiled machine, Provost Zakrarhov called for order and demanded an immediate vote on the matter. When people saw that Lal and Zakrarhov did not like the idea, the others voted 'yes' on the idea just to piss off the two of the major powers. So Eye of the Dragon, on the small Isle of Dexamenus, was accepted as the eighth faction on Chiron by the World Council.

What a downward spiral this would cause from there.

**(Story)**

**AN: May 13th, 2011: I decided, since I've already completed my edits for _Divine Intervention_, why not get a handle on the beginning of the whole thing as well? And jeez Louise did it help make this chapter look better. Just wait till you see this story's time line when I finish all my edits. Please review!**


	2. Fledgling

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

When the representatives returned from their council meetings, they all updated and informed their computers and populous of the new eighth faction. The terminals took it relatively well. On the small Isle of Dexamenus, where they were out of everyone's way and stood next to no chance of ever being a nuisance, information started to swell and gather. The island changed from a geographic map to a political map in short order.

To the masses of people across Chiron, they took it in different lights and different views. The Peacekeepers and University were naturally pretty mad. They were, after all, the most dominant figures in the world and another minority only diverted away from their sheer size and control. At the same time the Hive, Gaians, and Morganites were ecstatic about the idea. They hoped a treaty would be signed soon and increase trade. To them another minority in power meant more to swell their ranks against the three major powers.

The Spartans and the Believers held neither positive or negative feelings towards the new faction, Eye of the Dragon, or as they were beginning to be referred to, the Dragonites. As it stood the two greatest powers of the world didn't like them in the least, the minor powers liked them, and the two powers of the far west didn't care either way.

Satellite imaging slowly brought the haze through for the first seven factions to get a better understanding of how far the Dragonites were into this 'idea of independence'. As it was, the capital seemed to be on the very southern tip with a smaller construction site at the northern end. The island was claimed as it were. What the satellites couldn't tell, the netlinks from the emerging island faction was enough to get the idea across.

The sheer size of some of the files that were passing back and forth across the ocean to and from that tiny island was disturbing for some and amazing to others. The Dragonites were absolutely committed to becoming the eighth faction. The way it seemed to stand, they were a good mix of the other factions, which made sense because they came from all seven other factions. They had strong ideas for industry, the ecosystem, knowledge, a strong army. They firmly believed in these things, as well as their own.

The files also hinted at just how busy it was at these two active construction sites. Between frequent boil attacks and a constant flurry of actual building, it must be much more like a war zone than an idle construction zone. The shifts were drawn right down the middle, and any/all empaths were on the outer ring to try and subdue any attacks from the mind worms.

The northern base was evidently going to be for all the public work: trade and knowledge. While the capital would be used for the industry and the military. The island had been a minor project to consider for most of the factions, excluding the Believers since they were too far away, to create something close to a small get away: something either for expansion or something more secretive. However, with their plans slightly marred now that somebody else had gotten their first, they would just have to accept an eighth faction existing there instead of themselves.

One of the main reasons it was considered but never taken fully seriously, was because during the University-Morganite Vendetta, the Morganites in a savage attempt to win the last folding hand, had dropped a planet buster right atop one of the main University fleets running through the area that was swinging around to wreak havoc on the desert Morganite coast. The act had made the very southern tip of the Eastern continent turn absolutely green in glow. The Isle of Dexamenus was just about as close as you could get and not be fatally affected in that region of the world.

So the Dragonites were facing up to some of the most difficult tasks set before them. They had to deal with a small island which meant that there would be no expansion unless they invaded someone which wouldn't happen as pitifully small and weak they were. They had to deal with radiation. They had to deal with mind worms everywhere, and they didn't even have rooms to sleep in yet. It was like the first days and years after Planetfall or living in Africa back on Earth during the 'post-colonialism' era.

It was during this brief couple of weeks right after the announcement that the Peacekeepers had arrived upon their decision of what to do with the new faction; they were going to absorb the Eye of the Dragon, even if it took drastic measures to do so.

People sort of expected the Peacekeepers to put a little pressure on the new faction, but within months had not been expected at all. Despite a tense atmosphere between the two factions, it had generally been accepted that the two would remain dire enemies until a new shift in the social pattern like what the Great Wars in the 20th century had done on Earth.

It did come to everyone's surprise then when the netlinks recorded that a fully armed Peacekeeping fleet was straying from their sphere of influence, and almost on a direct course for the Isle of Dexamenus. The people monitoring this on the netlinks were already calling this the fifth vendetta of the world, the Peacekeeper-Dragonite Vendetta of 2474.

As the satellites slowly recorded images as they occurred, the world watched the battles ringing forth in the construction sites. However, they were simply amazed when the battle hardened Peacekeeping troops were forced to retreat. They certainly did not expect their own ships to fire on them when they arrived to the beaches, commandeered by Dragonite forces, and thus lose utterly the entire thing in just five hours.

The Peacekeepers were so utterly ashamed of their utter defeat that they became faced with a dilemma. Try to regain their lost pride or back off from the whole situation. In either case it was easy to determine that the Dragonites had no intention of returning either the Peacekeeping soldiers or the Peacekeeping fleet. The bodies were brought under mind control, an atrocity for an atrocity, and the ships were fashioned Dragonite banners and colors and emblems.

Now the world knew without a doubt that the 10,000 people that had broken away were bound and determined to become the eighth faction for they had stood up to the Peacekeeping forces, both five times their size and who had much better armor and weapons, and still they had come out in the end as the victors.

The world would fail to realize just how much this really affected their world. As, while the Dragonites had no intention of leaving their shores for the time being, they were still very much human, and no doubt with the new weapons, technology, and gifts given to them they would one day expand their horizons unto those had wronged them.

To humans, this could only mean one thing. The drone and mundane that the seven factions had settled into after initial Planetfall was over. There was a fledgling amongst them, and it was already squeezing a tit for its milk to nurture itself in order become a strong and healthy faction worthy of owning the world.

**(Story)**

**AN: May 13th, 2011: Here we have a second edit for _Eye of the Dragon_. Tell me what you guys think of these wonderful new edits I'm doing for you. This chapter should make so much more sense now it's unreal! Yeah! Hoo-Ha! War! Ugh! What is it goooood for? A-... Please review!**


	3. The Drawing Board

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

Now a year had gone by and it was mission year 2475, and the Dragonite bases were complete. The North Base, called the Dragon's Keep, had a very active harbor importing and exporting goods. It also held a finely trained militia which was keeping any funny business from happening; crime was reported at a mere two point four percent. In fact, it had been set up so that the militia resembled the famous soldiers from the very short Peacekeeper-Dragonite Vendetta of 2474; those soldiers who had been seen acting heroically through the spycams of the satellites up in the upper atmosphere of Chiron. They were, naturally, not people you wanted to mess with; some of the more famous soldiers from that brief vendetta had climbed over the bodies of eighteen fellow soldiers to carry a primitive grenade right into a cluster of Peacekeeping soldiers.

Dragon's Keep appeared along a flat coastline and the immense harbour which it built out on the sea demonstrated how mercantile the city had been intended to be. The rise of buildings could still be seen as they grew and grew like the monstrosities of the Morganite Collected Industries. The barrack-like dorms of the citizens and the denizens could be seen wrapped around in burgs like a sectioned off city within a city within a city. The high rise of the center of the city showed signs of 20 inch Tachyon cannons and a harbour defense did not seem apparent, which did not mean the batteries did not exist. This central fortress flowed into all section of Dragon's Keep which meant that it was also the center of the local government.

It was a rather short dive down the partial mag-tube express to the Dragonite capital, known as the Dragon's Den. It truly was a Dragon's Den from what little on the outside view could be seen. It looked like a giant imposing fortress ready to stand for eternity. There was even a sizzling Tachyon Belt guarding the city perimeters. It hooked around a natural crescent harbour where high up on the western side a magnificent spiraling tower stood watch over the local landscape and from here the faint lines of 24 inch Tachyon batteries held a supreme position of defense. The harbour at Dragon's Den didn't look nearly as busy as the merchant-oriented harbour of Dragon's Keep, yet a dry dock located beneath the fortress showed the refitting of the acquired Peacekeeping battleships and corvettes. A large industrial section seemed to not exist, but the traces of those factories churning out the goods being bought and sold in Dragon's Keep to the other factions could be seen beneath the ground like tips of an iceberg.

The show of force was good for the new eighth faction who continued to prove further and further that it was willing to defend its' keep and claim on the isle of Dexamenus, and that the eighth faction of the human race had a separate say on what it meant to be called _human_. It was this very determination that was giving them the edge on easing their way into the daily affairs of the citizens of Chiron; it did not hurt that the University was accepting of a faction which humiliated their rival for world dominance, and the Spartans were keenly interested in how the untrained citizen-soldiers of Eye of the Dragon had managed to stave off the well-groomed, armed, and experienced soldiers of the Peacekeeping 8th Reserve Fleet and the 31st through 35th Peacekeeping Reserve Shock Troops.

Of course the occurrence of an eighth faction instantly spurred further movement for more factions by small rebellious groups, but in a grand decision it was deemed to be impossible for a few reasons by the World Council. The first, and foremost, was that there was no land left that was suitable for any amount of people to establish an independent faction, and no amount of citizens would be able to build a sea territory the size needed in order to be recognized to be an official ninth faction by the World Council; where a total claim of over 5,000 square kilometers was set as the international standard.

The last, and possibly most effective, argument made was that when the time became available, any new factions would be allowed to possibly colonize parts of the three moons orbiting the planet. Of course, it would take around 500 years for any one of the three moons, Inky, Blinky, and Zoe, to be suitable for human life or even for enclosed life in bio-domes.

Inky was a very dark world with a constant storm system constantly raging on its surface very much like Venus; it was expected that due to the difference in distance from the Suns of the Alpha Centurai system and the moons of Chiron in comparison to the distance from Venus to the old star of Sol, the temperature on Inky would probably be around 40 Celsius during the day; no scientific forays onto Inky had yet been planned as of 2475.

Blinky, on the other hand, was a very bright world having next to no atmosphere; it was very much the Moon of old, of Luna, the moon that man had once sailed to on the Apollo missions of the 20th century.

Zoe, was named differently, because it was the strangest object in space they had ever encountered. Zoe was around a third the size of Chiron, and yet, it was a planet constantly destabilizing and breaking apart, and then gravity seemed to kick back in as it reformed.

If any of these were to be terraformed and made into a decent celestial body to live on it would take a very long time to do so.

The Dragonites were far from such explorations, but had set up their island well for their most immediate concerns. It was running well, and trade seemed to come in very often: partly out of curiosity and partly out of good product. The Dragonites made sure that their prices were low enough to attract merchant attention.

More immediate to their concerns was the advancement of cleaning the radioactive site just to the north-west of their island which prevented direct sea routes for trading with the Peacekeepers, University, Gaians, or Spartans. If Eye of the Dragon was to grow beyond their miniature shores, then a good, solid economy would bee needed, and that meant getting rid of the scars of a previous vendetta.

In the shadows, a man lurked as if the bulk of that iceberg of Dragon's Den, and within his den he gazed upon his schemes to attempt at gathering the world into his grasp of influence and power.

**(Story)**

**AN: June 22nd, 2011: Now how is that for an update? Now you get to finally see what I've been imagining as Dragon's Keep and Dragon's Den for all these years. I hope you guys enjoy these updates I'm performing because it's been slow work for me the past few weeks. I feel like I've been run over by a fricken' truck! Between working 40+ hours a week and training to become a manager, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. But no worries, I'm back and plan to continue with my intended and stated renovations of all of my stories. I should be adding new updates and reforms for _Haremization_ and _Everything_ when I come up with some better inspiration for the two. In the meantime, I'm going to try and renovate chapters 4-6 tonight for _Eye of the Dragon_ and add on to the new chapter 15 which will serve as my time line for this story before I post the sixteenth chapter: the END chapter. Alright folks, please review!**


	4. Coalition of Power

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

In the year 2485, the Dragonites had been around for a full eleven years. They'd won a vendetta; they were almost done with clearing up the radioactive zone north of their island, which the Gaians had been glad to help them with. The open trade lanes helped give a boom to the world's economy and while the Dragonites were not the greatest benefactor from this economic prosperity, they had expanded enough to build an actual bunker network, air pad network, and two Sea bases on the west and east end of the isle by the names of the Hydra, and the Sea Dragon.

It was also in this year that the Peacekeepers had been preparing their revenge. While the University was working on something called the Superconductor, the Hive was working on something called the Pholus Module, and everybody else was throwing a wild sexy orgy-like party the Peacekeepers had been preparing an elaborate scheme to enter a Vendetta and have a just reason for it.

The plan was simple; send an old Chaos Cruiser, something the Peacekeepers were known to value highly, have it in engaged in some brief military action, find a few dead bodies, fire a few Chaos Missiles to the side of the military vessel, and they'd be good to declare their vendetta..

The plan went off without a hitch at first. The Chaos Cruiser E-Wax49 entered the Dragonite territory with their ghost crew of only some fifty men. The men got off and started rowing back home and two Scramble Jets came offshore of the Peacekeeping territory and blew three gaping holes into the side of the ship letting it sink. It appeared that all would go right as the Peacekeepers began 'prepping' their forces for a responsive invasion of the isle of Dexamenus.

The part they had not expected was the immediate response from the Dragonite Navy and Air Force; three Tachyon Cruisers with Air Superiority came in from their patrol around The Hydra and upon seeing a sinking ship and flying Jets opened fire thinking one of their own had been sunk.

The Peacekeeping jets were not a problem for the Dragonite cruisers; however, the jets did get out a final message that was intercepted on a Peacekeeping regular military frequency that in return ordered the Emergency Fleet out to that point to deal with the Dragonite scum. The problem with the regulars of the military intercepting the message from jets was that Lal had been planning this secretly and nothing but the Emergency Fleet could react 'instantaneously'. If the E-Fleet had already been launched, and without his permission which wasn't required anyway, Lal was in for a rough ride as he tried to regain control of his overflowing populations of instant-patriotism.

The other Tachyon Cruisers that had been patrolling the Dragonite shores were now on full alert and sweeping their patrols in packs of four. The Air Force of the Dragonites was flying an intricate pattern between all of the Cruisers, the bases, and the air pads. The entire isle of Dexamenus and the waters surrounding it were on full alert; another vendetta like that of the Dragonite-Peacekeeper Vendetta of 2474 would not be allowed where enemy troops found themselves on Dragonite territory fighting in and around Dragonite homes and farms.

The arrival of the Emergency Fleet a few hours later did little good to the situation. The matter couldn't be avoided by Lal, and his only hope was to win before the wreckage of the original attack could be investigated. He had yet to decide to join the E-Fleet because he was assured by his military advisers that it would be a very one-sided battle which they could not hope to win, this act merely allowed them to gather more troops for the following, full-scale invasion.

When the E-Fleet arrived they were met by a hostile swarm of tachyon blasts and bombings. Needless to say, with the kind of budget the E-Fleet was on, they didn't even get close enough to fire back. Their final message back to the home Peacekeeping bunkers had been short, "They look like stars."

Now the Hive was one of the smallest factions, larger than only the Believers and the Dragonites. Though they loathed the Peacekeepers to quite a singeing degree due to their violent history across the Channel of Hercules at the tail of the Western continent and the southern underbelly of the Central continent, Yang did agree based on false evidence given to him by Lal that the Dragonites were a menace to their shores.

By the next day, the Hive and the Peacekeepers had mounted a coalition against the Dragonites, but they couldn't persuade the Morganites, University, or Gaians to attack the Dragonites, each saying more or less to the same degree that they were a valuable friend; the Morganites were booming with a new vigorous economic success which helped stimulate them back into their old glory before the devastating losses against the University, the University would never give aid to the Peacekeepers though Lal had hoped he might persuade old Zakharov, and the Gaians had never indicated anything but respect and affection for the Dragonites who took such great care and lengths to avoid harming 'Planet'.

The coalition was of the like that many remembered from the Vendetta between the Morganites and the University. The coalition consisted of 179 cruisers, 313 jets, and fifty transports filled to the brim of Hive and Peacekeeping crack Invaders.

The battle itself was vicious, blood filled, and worth it for the Dragonites. Despite their overwhelming size, the coalition of armed forces found itself in the same position the Morganites had but 100 years before; they had the size, but the enemy had the technology; Tachyon technology trumped Chaos technology which was still the main standard for most of the other factions.

The coalition was a lost cause when the transports were all sinking rubble, the jets were done to a few aces, and the cruisers simply didn't have the space to carry everyone back. Encircled and fighting their last stand, the battle would become famous, infamous really: Lal's Last Stand. He had been hoping to appear in a glorious spotlight as he dedicated the battle to saving the rights of those enslaved by the, as yet, unknown face(s) who organized and operated the entirety of the Dragonite faction; yet, when the dust of the vendetta had settled in the treaty rooms and governance boards the Peacekeeping faction was on the verge of a civil war.

The moral of the story in 2485 was that you should never tickle a sleeping a dragon.

**(Story)**

**AN: June 22nd, 2011: Well here is yet another update for _Eye of the Dragon_! I'm really enjoying my work and it might not be evident to you, but major changes in the syntax and grammar and word choice has gone into these first four chapters. In other news, I'm thinking of adding a scene from the original posting of this story. I may or may not actually attempt to rewrite it into the story. With that said, please review because I'm practically starving over here for some reviews. Reviews...so...thirsty!**


	5. Powder Keg

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

Given another fifteen years and the world of Chiron was celebrating the turn of the mid-millennium. It was 2500, exactly four hundred years since planet fall. The radioactive clean up project had been completed and the world was experiencing a prosperous period in the market. Even the Believers, whom had been shunned from the world for hundreds of years, were given a sort of reprieve from their day with the increased trade.

The Morganites of course were reaping in the credits that they could, hoping to become more than a Moderate power once again. The tensions seemed to be building in between a three way battle. The Univerisity had stepped in to support the rightful Lal, in his position over the Peacekeeping faction. While the Spartans supported the bases breaking away from Lal.

Both Peacekeeping sides didn't want any outside support...because both sides had suffered from the University or the Spartans in some sort of Vendetta. Either directly, or indirectly, like when the Believers, a big ally of the Peacekeepers had been all but eradicated.

So while the two sides of the Peacekeepers were heating up against each other with harsh words, and preparing troops in case of outright civil war, the outsiders, namely the University troops and the Spartan troops, were preparing for outright war. For a war in which they weren't even wanted in they would utilize the moment to demonstrate their superior prowess.

"There is no need for the current Peacekeepers to break apart," cried out a University diplomat. It was the meeting of meetings. Every single diplomat worth his vote was at the World Council to decide the fate if a civil disunion was even allowed according to the UN Charter and Addendum which this very council had brought into effect.

The outcry from the Spartans and the confederate Peacekeepers was immediate. "Under the leadership of Lal, 40,000 men died in a revenge mission against the Dragonites: an utter failing of the UN guidelines," a confederate Peacekeeping diplomat shot back. How interesting that the normally calm politicians of the World Council now bickered amongst one another.

The Gaians, who were much more the true peacekeepers of the world, spoke up, "The Dragonites have already forgiven Lal for his revengeful plan provided that he was not able to govern for ten years. That time has come to an end. It is time for Lal to take his rightful place at the head of the Peacekeepers."

The Confederate Peacekeepers spoke up once again in retaliation, "Lal was the one forgiven. Peacekeeping trading vessels are still heavily inspected in Dragonite waters before they're even close to land, and stripped of anything that may be used against the Dragonite state!"

The Hive concurred, "The same is done to Hive trading vessels, but not stripped of their property."

"What do you think you deserve after ruthlessly starting a vendetta on the basis of you lost the previous one?" came a University diplomat sharply. The point had merit if a little hypocritical considering the University backing of the Hive during the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta of 2219-2289. When the Hive had suffered greatly through the vendetta, it had partially prompted the University attack on the Morganites holding former Peacekeeping lands that they had been planning on taking in revenge. Of course, there were the philosophers called the Pragmatists who stated that war was always in retaliation for something; a beginning could not be found to man's desire for war.

This was the way it was working itself. Back and forth, this way and that way. Thrusts and parries, sidesteps and dives. 728 diplomats, representing the 728,000 humans of Chiron were dancing back and forth in a delicate balance of sharp words and wit.

It was only the beginning of what would be to come if nothing was settled. If nothing was settled, the three greatest powers of the planet would be at war. The Hive would be easy to drag in, and the Gaians would no doubt side with the University over time. The Believers siding with the Confederates was pretty guaranteed as well.

The way things were looking, it might as well be an outright war soon enough. "See what happens when you undo the status quo?" people would ask rhetorically of the new fledging Dragonites.

It wasn't but a few weeks when everything was decided that there would be no peace. Peace wasn't even an option. The Spartans in an outright pre-emptive strike, bombed several Lal held bunkers on the outskirts of his bases. Officially the vendetta might have been called the Spartan-Loyalist vendetta of 2500. However, that was not the crux of the entire vendetta; it was whether the people, or governors in this case, had a right to elect a new leader. Were the enigmatic eight of the eight factions the only ones truly capable of ruling the fragmented blocks of mankind?

The University response was to blockade the Believers from sending resources to the Confederates, and shell the shores of the Confederates.

The Believers responded by signing a new found treaty with the Spartans and an outright alliance with the Confederates. In return they got some of the empty space between the Believers and the Spartans as a token of appreciation. But they ended up uprooting several mind-worm colonies in the process.

The Gaians not very happy with this turn of events began to boycott the Believer products, even to the point of patrolling the Believer trade lanes and stripping them of property.

The Morganites, not a very happy camper of boycotts and the damage it did to the market, posed troops on the Gaian border and outright demanded that it stopped its' pirating of commercial goods and damaging the world economy.

The University responded by declaring the Morganites a Confederate supporter and the University, Loyal Peacekeepers, and the Gaians declared war on the Morganites. Though technically the Morganites were supporting the Loyalists by opposing the Gaian pirating of the Believer vessels who were in alliance with the Confederates.

The Hive...whom had been enjoying the peaceful days when people didn't bother them about their mind control, began to grow worried as they saw more and more Spartans on Hive territory near the border searching the landscape for downed Loyalists jets, or stopping Hive ships to search for Loyalist denizens. Angered by this, the Hive took the direct approach and converted the nearest Spartan base, and earning them a spot on the Loyalist side.

These were only the major events that snow balled into the cataclysmic Great Vendetta of 2500. The Loyalists, who supported Lal, were the University, the Loyal Peacekeepers, the Gaians, and the Hive. Then there were the Confederates, which consisted of the Spartans, the Confederate Peacekeepers, the Morganites, and the Believers.

Only the Dragonites had yet to declare vendetta on anyone. So theoretically, the lines were drawn down the middle. The Spartans canceled out the University in terms of strength. The Confederates canceled out the Loyal Peacekeepers in terms of strength. The Morganites canceled out the Gaians in terms of strength. Last and most certainly least, the Believers canceled out the Hive in terms of strength. Both Loyalists and Confederates would be seeking to gain the Dragonite favor in battle; as small as they were, they still had won two vendettas already.

The Dragonites for their part maintained a wary and guarded eye on their borders. The sky on different parts of the horizon might flash as particularly heavy fire would rain down upon a base. The lack of planetbusters had amazed the conglomerated population of the Isle of Dexamenus, but then again, many things amazed a small, ferocious people who did not wish for their way of life to be disturbed: their isolationist policy.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 3rd, 2011: Okay guys! I have some awesome news for you! I've added two chapters to _Haremization_ before I went to work (technically yesterday) and am now adding much needed updates on my oldest story _Eye of the Dragon_. Expect a few more edits for _Eye of the Dragon_ before I shift focus to _To Be a Mountain Face_ and possibly start chucking around a couple of new story ideas which have been plaguing me for a little while. I'm almost too excited to add new material to _To Be a Mountain Face_ to really entertain the idea much, but it remains a possibility.**

**I really do hope that you guys review because, as always, I absolutely adore your reviews. They give me something to mock at night. MUAHAHAHAHA!  
**


	6. Oh What a Lovely War

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure. I should mention that the phrase, 'It's a Lovely War' was coined in reference to the stalemate of World War I. The title given for this chapter is actually in dedication to a history book of mine that I can't seem to find in all of my boxes after moving to give it proper credit.  
**

**(Story)**

It was in the waning time of the year 2500 that vendetta broke out. Much like a long forgotten war on Earth, World War I, it was ideology rather than opportunity which drove mankind to war. In World War I much of Europe was dragged into the war by misunderstandings, alliances, militarism, and nationalism. These can be interpreted into how the Great Vendetta started. When Lal sent his troops to crush the Dragonites, he was attempting to overthrow a faction which had become a thorn in his side, according to Lal's provisional logic. His plan, however, back fired, and he was forced to leave his almighty position as the faction leader for 10 years. During this time the temporary leader or interim Chairman, Lal's son Minato, tried to quell the drone riots over the explosion of information leaked onto the netlinks about the secret vendetta against the Dragonites.

Minato was not a capable leader. So in time, several bases grew to distance themselves from bases much closer to the capital, the U.N. Headquarters. By the time Lal was back in his proper seat, the situation was more than he could handle. His attempt to put down the drone riots with military police failed. When tight security was drawn upon to keep the drones in check, the drones grew to resent their loss of rights. After fourteen years of peace after the end of the short vendetta, the bases that had grown distant and rioted, drew a deep dividing crevice between Loyalists and the Confederates. For much of the year, and well into the next, arguments and small drone skirmishes and riots broke out all across the Peacekeeping faction territory.

When the two super powers stepped in, they were both looking out for their own interests. The University sought to keep the balance, the status quo, of the factions as the world was still trying to recover from the shift in power with the Dragonites officially splitting away from the seven original factions. The Dragonites were so small with just 60,000 people that they held just eight percent of the world's population, but less than a percent it's quotient power; where 'power' was detailed and ranked based upon the past fifty years. The Dragonites were not old enough to be ranked amongst the other factions as yet.

The Spartans on the other hand sought to shift the status quo further and send the barely stronger University faction tumbling down to the bottom rung. They held near all of their continent, easily the largest faction territory wise. They had the Believers pushed to the far north, and the Hive pushed to the far east. Yet as a faction of war and might and glory they sought to ever expand beyond their borders. Shifting the world a little further might open up the opportunity to nab at more land, whether it be from one of their original victims, or from a new victim of their violence.

When the World Council was called in to solve the situation it only let the tensions rise as neither side desired to give up their position, and their was no supreme power to dictate who was right and who was wrong. There were two super powers that disagreed, and so they decided to press their swords at each others throat as if this were the Cold War of old. Sadly, it seems history is much like a river because Provost Zakrarhov had actually lived during the Cold War and seemed to have learned nothing.

When the Spartans went outright and declared Vendetta pre-emptively, the University sought to retaliate without making a direct move onto the Spartans, but instead confine the Confederates. To do this, they took the only Confederate supporter, the Believers, and blockaded them from sending supplies or trade of any kind to the Confederates. This caused the Believers to come directly involved in the power struggle where they had only voiced their support before in the World Council.

When the Believers came in to support the Confederates they demanded outright that the territory on their border with the Spartans be ceded over to them. The Spartans didn't care for the territory as it was infested with mind worms, and the Spartans had never been terribly interested in the land. When the Believers disturbed these mind worms from their habitat, the Gaians were upset by this and brought themselves into the fight. They did so by shutting down the Believer trade by boycotting Believer goods. Without meaning to get directly involved, the Gaians were pulled off onto the Loyalist side of the fight.

That would set the sides at the Spartans, Confederate Peacekeepers, and the Believers on the Confederate side. While the University, Loyal Peacekeepers, and the Gaians were on the other side.

The entry of the Morganites was directly rooted to the boycott. As the ideology of the Morganites clearly is the market, and the wealth to be gained from the market, when the Gaians started boycotting Believer goods, the market began to decline somewhat. It had already been declining, but the Gaians were the only ones the Morganites could really stand up to at the moment as their navy was not up to par to invade any faction by the sea. Thus the Morganites were called on over to the Confederate side.

The Hive, would end up joining because of Spartan brutality against all those in the way of destroying the enemy. They didn't care that Loyalist jets crashed down in Hive territory and not Spartan territory; Corazon sent in the military to recover them all the same. Additionally, with the searching of Hive vessels, it was only a matter of time before the Hive would join the Loyalist side to seek reparations against the invasion of their sovreignty.

And now, nearly the whole world was embroiled in vendetta; or rather in a vendetta which lacked major physical attacks save small skirmishes and probe attacks. The first steps taken was for the Spartans to strengthen their major position by sending troops to the major action areas. They sent troops to their eastern border to ward off any more Hive attacks; they sent troops into the Confederate territory to bolster up the main theater of the war; and they sent troops into the Morganite territory to help bolster up the surrounded Confederately allied faction on the eastern continent.

In the meantime, the University sent troops into the Loyalist territory for the main theater of the war; they sent troops into the Gaian territory to fight off the Morganites there, as well as into the Hive territory for support, and along their two borders with the Confederates and the Morganites for direct action rather than play a supporting role.

With the small light skirmishes occurring all over the world, the world shifted into two markets that barely overlapped the other. That overlapping point became the Dragonites. With a strong enough navy and air force to defend their island if the need came about, the Dragonites were not pestered to join either side with much fervor. It was shown that a vastly numerous force could invade the island multiple times and the Dragonites would outlast their attackers. The Dragonites continued to show greater and greater promise because of the constant inflow of trade; they were not as effected as the other factions by the attrition of vendetta which was slitting cuts all over the world to the factions of mankind.

By the year 2502, with nothing but skirmishes, newspapers were calling the Great Vendetta, the Great Faux. Leaders and Grand Councils were being pushed to up their dosage of their effort in the war, but both sides were fearful of the world exploding into something akin to Earth. The last thing any of the factions wanted to do was to recreate the ravages of Earth on their new cradle of life and opportunity.

Alas, all days slowly fade into the night before all the lights go out and there is nothing but darkness. The night last as longs as the mind is fearful of it, and thus, once the night goes away it is only a short reprieve till the day wanes once again.

The Spartans grew desperate for some sort of outcome in the vendetta without losing their position in the world order and sent a major invasion force to the Isle of Dexamenus. Their intent was to take over the island, and use it as a means to squeeze the Hive into submission by a pincer attack. This would mean that the balance shifted favorably in the Confederate direction. With the Hive out of the picture, the major industries of the Loyalists would suffer. With a further unbalanced economy and lack of cannon fodder Hive troops, the Spartans could then shift a three-way attack on the Gaians. The Gaians would surely crumble, dancing in the streets of their tree-hugging cities with naked crumpled bodies. The loss of the Gaians would mean that the Morganites could breathe easier and produce more industrial goods for the Confederates which would aid the ill-equipped Confederate forces in the central continent. Better troops in the central theater meant that a major victory against Lal could be made, and from there it was only a short skip over the overrun University troops trying to save too many locations at once.

If the Isle of Dexamenus failed it could very well spell disaster for the entire Loyalist movement. If they did not fall...well...if they did not fall into Spartan hands the Confederates would find themselves at odds with yet another faction. Only this time, the Dragonites played with wild cards and strange trump cards which pulled rabbits out of whiskey bottles and mind worms straight from the ear. The Dragonites would make or break either side depending upon this one gutsy invasion.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 3rd, 2011: And here is yet another edit! Hey! Don't give me those looks! I've been working really hard lately and I've been adding some deeper details to what I imagined of the 'Great Vendetta of 2500' to make the story much more interesting! ...and longer...**

**So what do you guys think? Is the guy who has posted the most stories in the Alpha Centauri section of awesome or what? Ultimagu demands an answer before his squeedily spooch detonates!**


	7. The Dramatics Build

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.  
**

**(Story)**

Early in the morning during the mission year of 2502, radar, quite the primitive and almost useless piece of technology, picked up on a cloud of movement. Dexter Minuels, a technician in the West Sea Early Warning Defense System (WSEWDS), was the one to notice this movement. The sun was barely up at the moment. It was not a trading fleet, because the commercial lanes had mostly shut down, and what was left trickled in to the ports of the Dragonites due to their nefarious isolationist policies and even-handed dealings.

No, Dexter had a feeling he was looking at something else: something else entirely. The longer he looked at the cloud of movement, the more he was wary of it. It just didn't sit well with him. Vaguely he called up something in the distant past called Pearl Harbor, but it didn't change his view of the moment. But he took it upon himself to first send a message to the commander, Sargent William Jones about the anomaly. Then he spent half an hour cross referencing all fleets and known hull frequencies, and he found himself sending emergency messages continuously.

You see, radar is where a wave of varying wavelength, whether longer waves like sound or shorter waves like x-ray, is emitted from a central ball. That wave then ripples outward from its source. Upon hitting something, some of the wave simply passes into the new medium, and it then changes frequency and speed. However, what is left bounces back towards the source and it is converted into an image. The Spartans had the ill luck to be the only ones still making Cruisers and Transports with a Quantum Wall; the frequency of the quantum wall is distinct and this was for a single reason; the returning waves had next to nothing in wavelength. Almost all the wave simply passed through the hull or was absorbed. It was this tiny little bit that returned that made all the difference. An anomaly in and of itself as it changed frequencies without even really passing through new mediums or being deflected off of something else. This scientific anomaly came from how the Quantum Wall was built.

Regardless, Dexter sent a message with the "Emergency" title '&hhd&jFu784821482'. A random sort of letters and numbers and symbols that was sent to the void receiver. It was in actuality, a filter system the Hive-like aspect of the Dragonites had set up to "destroy" random messages that plugged up the netlinks. If you sent a message with the right title it would be transferred appropriately to a government terminal. If you were trying to play a prank you probably lost your job.

When the message was received, the orders to deploy out west were sent out. The Air Force stood on standby to eradicate their enemies from the sky, the Navy stood on full alert ready to pivot themselves into the enemies side, and the Great Wall, a defense mechanism that had been built as secretly as possible for the past 17 years was put on alert. It was a massive wall in which a volunteer force spent countless hours expanding to completely encircle the island, and at one point in the future should become as much of an offense as a defense. However, it was only completed 46 percent around the island. It was expected for attacks to come from the west and the north, and that was where the wall was initially built. That was also where the Spartan Fleet was coming from to invade the Dragonites tiny island.

The Spartan Fleet was a sight to behold. A true testament to the Spartan way. It was quite easily the largest fleet ever assembled for such an operation. The Spartans did not dignify the Dragonites with the term vendetta. Instead, they chose the word _operation_ as if the fighting would be over within days. They underestimated the burgeoning Dragonites as much as the Peacekeepers had in their previous two vendettas; those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Consisting of over 2,000 Cruisers pulled from the Western, Southern, and most of the Eastern Fleets, it was more than six times the size of the Peacekeeping Invasion forces from 17 years prior. It was also more than four times the size of the Dragonite Navy. Loaded onto those Cruisers, were tens of thousands airplanes: Mk2's, and Avenger's. The Spartans might not dignify the Dragonites with the word vendetta, but they brought the invasion fleet that spoke volumes beyond a simple vendetta. They brought in enough worthy of the word _war_.

The Dragonites defense plan was simple enough to be devastatingly effective; begin the Emergency Dive on the Hydra and the Sea Dragon. From there activate the devices beneath them and lowering them well beneath the depth that depth charges would be released by the Spartan forces. From there a pipe would extend out from the main island, and connect with both of the sea, now underwater, bases, and the people would be evacuated to bunkers deep beneath the surface to protect them from any further harm. The military would then take up the posts on the outer shell of the two sea bases and rise some 1,000 meters until they could see large objects on the surface. Any ships that passed by, down to the size of a rowboat, could be identified and would have three torpedoes charging at it before it was given time to row away. This process would take roughly half of the hour, but the surprise in the 'surprise attack' had been lost thanks to the primitive technology of radar.

The remnants that made it past the underwater sea bases, or simply diverted them, would run into the Great Wall. It would start from its underwater position, and then rise as the enemy fleet or pack approached. When it had risen, the enemy would be face to face with the Volunteer force and their handiwork. Over 400 feet high, and 50 feet thick, the Great Wall currently sported eight Combustion Cannons. These gigantic cannons were accompanied along with several smaller versions.

Should the enemy make it past the Great Wall, they would come face to face with the flying death gods of the Dragonite Air Force, and the sea creatures of the Dragonite Navy. This included 500 Cruisers, and nearly 3,000 airplanes. All top of the line and all ready and willing to die for their faction.

Should the enemy make it past the submerged sea bases, the Great Wall, the Navy, and the Air Force, they would have to land with the Coast Guard firing upon them. Unlike the more 20th century idea of the Coast Guard, the Dragonite Coast Guard consisted of bunkers built into the natural cliffs all along the island. Not much land had beaches on the island: just high cliffs. Under the fire of these cliff bunkers, the enemy would have to land and begin establishing their forward base while deactivating the cliff bunkers.

Should the enemy manage to take the invasion even farther, should they land their troops, and begin the actual invasion itself they would find themselves up against crack teams of expert troops. Dragonite troops had to remain on top. With the mind worms constantly trying to swarm all over the island and destroy the human settlements they had to be the best. Or else their island failed and they fell into the hands of those whom they had left.

The mind worms attacked for many reasons. Most of the reasons involved with the initial removing of mind worms from the island. After that, things took a turn for the worse as the land was cultivated. Things took a far more sour turn, when the Dragonites began building their mammoth projects.

In essence, the Dragonite Army was nothing to be laughed at if you wanted to survive. They held the least territory, but they held more than enough power in their military to fend off several large-scale invasions.

This was the array of might and power the Spartans had brought themselves up against. This...is what lead to be known as the Battle of Siroquis.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 3rd, 2011: What? You didn't believe that I would actually take some more time and add yet another edited chapter to _Eye of the Dragon_? For shame! Shame on all of you! When I have the time and inspiration I work diligently to correct most of my past mistakes and standardize the way I present my chapters to you guys. Yet, here you are doubting my prowess. Sheesh!**

**Does anyone notice which details I even add to these chapters? ...probably not... **

**REVIEW!**


	8. Battle of Siroquis

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

******Review Commentaries:**

******Intrigued: **Yes I have begun to work on dose sepling mistakes i forgto to wrko on fro all dese years. ...really? You want to make fun of my lack of editing when your very review suggests something missing in that cavity you call a head? Hypocrisy sir! HYPOCRISY!

******Gaki: **Whoa, whoa whoa! JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE YOUNG DOESN'T MEAN YOU NEED TO YELL ALL THE TIME! See how annoying it is? Anyway, yes I apologize for it taking so long to continue making the edits. I did not do it on purpose; I merely have this thing called a job, a wife, and a screaming infant to take care of. You should try it some time, but wait till you're out of middle school so you don't have to take a primary student to school and then walk a few blocks to your secondary school where you have yet to obtain your high school diploma... and yes I'm bitchy tonight. My stomach hurts. BEGONE!******  
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**(Story)**

The Battle of Siroquis, [Sear-ah-kyu-ss] an alternate spelling of Syracuse from the Meditteranean back on Earth, is referred to throughout the datalink textbooks as the turning point of a feuding human settlement society on Chiron, to true nations of the human ideology spectrum. It is referred to as such because of the devastation inflicted on other human beings in such conditions that had not been seen since the final waning wars of Earth.

While the University, Spartans, and Peacekeepers had had their fair share of intense vendettas, they were nothing on the scale of the wars of Earth. In a single battle, the Battle of Siroquis which was named after a Spartan Commander, one sixth of the 718,000 population on Chiron would die a bloody, horrible death.

When the Spartans came into the area where the Hydra should have been, many stopped as the mystery needed to be solved immediately. If they found they were off position from where they thought they were, it could mean everything in their strategy. This could be a serious problem if their navigation was truly on the fritz without their systems knowing that something was then other parts of the system may be wrong without their knowing as well.

Little did they know, this gave the first defense mechanism of the Isle of Dexamenus the much needed additional ten minutes to evacuate the last of its citizens. Then the Hydra rose 1,000 meters from the evacuation depth and began to take aim at the sitting ducks above them.

The Spartan war machine had been stopped for over an hour as they went over the figures again and again and again. They kept figuring that the Hydra should be where they were, but they could not seem to find the damn thing. Much to their surprise, the S.R.S. (Spartan Royal Ship) Javelin and Arizona suddenly gave a flash before splitting in half and sinking into the cold waters of this far southern pole of the world. Hundreds of sailors were in the waters even as the loose collective mind worms dug into their brains. An incident brought on by the lack of the Hydra to work on fighting them off for just an hour.

The Hydra and the Sea Dragon were the testing grounds for new weapons against LCMW (Loose Collective Mind Worms) or simply the teeming masses of mind worms which had lost some connection with other mind worms around them and tried to flood human settlements in an attempt to regain their lost connection.

The Spartan response was to charge their cruisers and battleships into the area and find the enemy that had sunk the two ships. What followed within the next chaotic 15 minutes was the destruction of the S.R.S. Yiddish, Marlow, Hercules, Perses, Medusa, Athens, Zog, and Bravery. The Spartans figured the enemy must be beneath the water at this point and thus accordingly released their depth charges into the depths of the sea. However, taking the time to do as much was assured suicide. More than twenty lesser ships sunk trying to drop their depth charges, while another fifty-nine were crippled or badly damaged in the process of trying to run over the area and release their depth charges and run onward before being hit.

This reduced the invasion fleet to 1,970 ships with only 1,909 ships operational.

The Dragonite forces in the submerged Hydra did the best they could, but they knew from their fixed position that the enemy would eventually just split up or go around them. Given the opportunity, one Lieutenant Ultrix ordered a distance torpedo to be launched near horizontally and aimed near the rear of the invasion fleet. It was a brilliant move. The S.R.S. Trojan Horse was a large transport ship carrying over 1,000 of the top Spartan elites and it was behind hundreds of other ships in this invasion force.

When its' hull was suddenly ripped open from an explosion it had the desired effect of scattering the invasion force. The ships behind them scattered towards the south and abandoned the more traditional Phalanx position at sea while the ones in the front began to speed forwards. It wasn't that the sailors were acting rashly, or outside of their set military-ingrained minds, they were doing as they were taught to do. However, the two ideas contradicted each other in this situation. If the person in front of you is taken out, you pull back and regroup. If the person behind you is taken out you press forward and charge on. A conundrum for every military force is when someone in the middle is picked off without you being able to see the enemy.

As ships began speeding forward, the military stations of the Hydra had a free for all as they plucked ship after ship off the surface and dragged them beneath the cold surface of the near polar seas.

The invasion fleet was thus reduced to 1,912 ships with only 1,861 ships operational.

This is three hours after the initial warning received by WSEWDS and around half an hour after the first clashes of the battle. Now, the two divisions decided on a new tactic. Those who had sped forward, and had gotten past the dangerous depths above the Hydra, were to press on eastward towards the Isle of Dexamenus. They would stage a diversion and land a minimal land force on the beaches of the western coast, protected by the heavy gun power of the battleships and cruisers, not to mention the Mks' and Avengers that would be flocking into the sky. This, however, was just a diversion for the much less protected division teeming with Spartan soldiers.

The other division would sneak southward and land just east of the capital itself, the Dragon's Den.

This is where the battle splits into two separate parts. The first division, the part of the Spartan fleet that was heading straight eastward kept pushing themselves eastward with no more interferences until they came upon something else unexpected. They pushed themselves along, wary of what else might comes their way, when a shadow appeared beneath the first battle cruisers.

Thus the diversionary fleet of the invasion force held 1,273 ships with 1,270 ships operational, and the main invasion fleet held 455 ships with 449 ships operational.

Shortly after the shadow came, the Great Wall rose right from underneath the ships and many of them were either flipped over or split in half. The immediate reaction from both the Great Wall and the Spartan Fleet was to open fire on each other; the results were devastating from such attrition-minded tactics. The Spartans were somewhat clustered as they slowed down in their large formation and so the Combustion Cannons had no problem picking off these clusters with a single shell. While the total array of the Spartan offensive guns had a very easy target as well: a giant wall!

The two sides ripped into each other until the Great Wall grew silent. Its' massive form crumbled into the depths where the Spartan division had fought fiercely to dominate over yet another surprise resulting in a gaping four kilometer hole!

This had resulted in the diversionary fleet being reduced to 731 ships with 684 ships operational.

The Dragonite Fleet and Air Force reacted immediately from their now exposed position; they snapped out from behind the Great Wall like a dragon's fireball and headed straight for the Spartan division; 2,500 Winglies and 300 tachyon cruisers came shooting forth from behind the wreckage of the Great Wall and put the Spartan division under constant fire. Now, the Spartan fleet as a whole was already at 59.3 percent of their total forces. The first division that had attacked the Great Wall only represented 36.5 percent of what remained. They were tired, and they knew they were still only halfway to landing. However, they decided to give it their all or die trying.

Despite the initial surprise attack stripping the Spartan division of much of its potential to launch its own air force and fire power, what did remain was ready and able. The sky was filled with screaming shells and racking explosions. The pinkish/bluish sky was filled with Avengers and Mk2's trying to swarm the Winglies. This part of the battle raged for nearly two hours before a battered Spartan division called the retreat and fled as fast they could. Commander Siroquis was the last to leave the scene, and his final act was to contaminate the waters with dangerous radiation from the spent fuel cells aboard his flagship the S.R.S. Warmonger.

Thus the diversionary force was reduced to 394 ships fleeing from the battle at full speed with only 261 of those ships being fully operational.

The second Spartan division suffered far worse than the first. They made their way sneakily to the southern tip of the island. With much of the Dragonite attention focused on the western waters, it came as a complete surprise to find 40,000 Spartan troops on their shores, near the capital no less.

What the Spartans had not expected was the series of bunkers and trenches the isle of Dexamenus had been built into the land over their few decades. Troops got lost and were killed. Troops advanced and were killed. Troops retreated and stumbled and were killed. The transports were picked off from the shore batteries once they were reactivated and the remaining unoccupied fleet. More than 4/5 of the ground troops were killed within the first hour of their invasion. The rest would become little better than slaves with their nerves stapled and mind control devices holding them at bay.

When the Spartans had fully retreated, their war machine had been reduced to the bone. A mere 19.7 percent returned. While 93 percent of the Dragonite forces remained which did not include the near 8,000 Spartan troops who would be forced to help rebuild what they had destroyed.

Eventually stripped of most of their rights, privileges and much else, they were sorted into the Great Wall effort. They would man the Great Wall and defend for generations what they had sought to destroy. The only reason it was even allowed was under the promise that rights would be given back slowly for their hard work, to pay off their war crime of attacking a neutral faction. Most of them would die in the coming centuries before those rights were ever given back.

Where the world had started that day off with 718,000 human beings in all of the universe, it ended with just over 697,000. It was the single most bloody day in Chiron's history.

From this point on,the neutrality of the Dragonites was not questioned, and the Spartans had been reduced to a boned army trying to recoup their losses. However, despite the calamities that would rise within the next few months, the University would suffer a similar fate attempting to push their forces into Morganite lands. The Great Vendetta continued to appear as if it was stalemated.

While the neutrality of the Dragonites was no longer questioned, the acting presence of the Dragonites was. The Dragonites spent the next four years of the war only continued to trade with their allies, the University, the Gaians, the Hive, and with great hesitation, the Loyalist Peacekeepers, while they continued the building projects which built their one island into a gigantic fortress.

Over the next four years no physical boundaries would be made. No bases were exchanged, but the space in between them became bloody wastes: no man's land. The "Faux Vendetta" had turned into a meat grinder with few results other than a dwindling human population.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 3rd, 2011: Well I am particularly elated to finish this lengthy (for me) chapter. I will not turn it over to the masses who desire to read it as the holy word of God...ME! Review foul demons! REVIEW!**


	9. The Politics That Follow

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

Given serious time and effort the Confederates or the Loyalists could have made a decisive victory. The problem lay in the fact that after seven years a population of 728,000 on Chiron had been decimated into 450,000. Almost half of the people were dead where bodies that were held dear to their family and friends were left out for the mind worms to devour in the waste lands between factions.

The two battlefields which had cost the most lives lay inbetween the Loyalist and the Confederate Peacekeepers. Where the Battles of Ira, Mucdor, and Alla had claimed the lives of nearly 90,000 lives alone. The other was in the eastern continent, between the University colony, the Morganites, and the Gaians. The Battles of Gaia's Landing, Bushikvor, and Mira claimed the lives of nearly 60,000. The rest were lost in the Battle of Siroquis, or small anonymous battles in the water or the land surrounding the hot spots. The lowest death toll for an official 'battle' was on a particular holy day and two battalions opened fire and then presented one another with presents before returning to their bunkers for the rest of the day. Only six men had been lost.

In the wake of these enormous losses mankind set aside their differences for the mean time and brought about a new wave of prosperity in the hopes of rebuilding the human civilization. The terms of the treaty were as follows.

**ARTICLE V, SECTION III**

_The "Loyalist-Confederate" disagreement on the sanctioned leadership of Lal, and the appointed-by-the-people leadership of Kurchask, is to be settled by the recognition of the "Confederate" Peacekeepers by the current World Council Powers including, the "Loyalist" Peacekeepers under Pravin Lal, the Gaians under Deidre Skye, the University Zakrarhov, the Believers under Miriam Godwinson, the Morganites under Nwabudike Morgan, the Hive under Shen-ji Yang, the Spartans under Corazon Santiago, and the Dragonites under the undisclosed leadership of their people._

**ARTICLE V, SECTION IV**

_Henceforth, to avoid confusion between the Peacekeepers under the leadership of Lal and the Peacekeepers under the leadership of Kurchask, the Peacekeepers under the leadership of Lal, as the original Peacekeeping faction, shall remain by the name of the Peacekeepers. In return, the Peacekeepers under the leadership of Kurchask, as the newly formed Peacekeeping faction, shall henceforth forever adopt the name, until further leadership change and major governmental or structural change, of the Pherals._

**ARTICLE V, SECTION V**

_In reparation for the disunion between the Peacekeepers and the Pherals, the Pherals shall return ANY AND ALL equipment, documents, personal, credits, and supplies. The Pherals as any upstarting and new faction will have to start from the first square as the eight before them have done so before. In addition, the Pherals must make amendments to the distraught families whom have lost family to the Great Vendetta. 10 credits per person. In total that comes to 2,780,000 credits. As this is such a large sum, material wealth may be converted into financial wealth as part of the reparation. Even further, payments must begin immediately, however with a minimum of 27,800 credits being used for reparations each year, it should take the Pherals no more than 1,000 years to pay it off._

**ARTICLE VII, SECTION III**

_Henceforth, no new faction may be admitted into the World Council. All off springs of the current powers that be, will not be admitted. For any unforeseeable circumstance where one of the powers that be is unable to continue, or is in an 80 percent majority agreement for major governmental reform, then it is up to the World Council to deliberate on the matter with a hearing, and a vote. Two thirds majority needed to pass, and should the Planetary Governor veto the movement then a three fourths majority is needed._

The entire peace treaty was not too entirely long, but it addressed several issues on everyones mind about the vendetta. In the end, the world as a whole turned to one source for its comfort. That source, was the Dragonites. The two factions to be damaged the least in the war were the Believers and the Dragonites. Thousands of people left their homelands and turned to these two havens. People fled to the Believers because they had a guide and hope to give to the people, and people fled to the Dragonites because of the introduction of the Great Wall a couple of years prior which offered an imposing image of defense for the Dragonites.

The Believers offered faith, the Dragonites offered protection. Both were chastised by the rest of the World Council for their methods, though the Dragonites more so than the Believers. Building such a thing only showed a hesitation with the new world order in the peace after the Great Vendetta. The Dragonite answer was a firm, 'So what?' No major power dared to try and stop the Dragonites after the cataclysmic losses of the Great Vendetta.

Given that nobody really trusted each other all that much anymore, it was a wonder that the global market even began again. It was a good time for reckoning for the two major powers. The Believers with their new found support and industry were able to claim a few bases down their northern part of the western continent from the Spartans. At the same time over several decades the Hive systematically took control of the Spartan eastern bases on the western continent.

The University suffered a similar fate. The Morganites reclaimed almost all of their lost land from the University-Morganite Vendetta. All that was left was the coastal base of Bushikvor, and that was only because of the heavy University populace within the base. While at the same time, the Peacekeepers and the Pherals were able to reclaim all of the lands lost in the University-Peacekeeper Vendetta.

The Gaians over several decades...played with their flowers? It wasn't exactly an exciting moment for them. That's about all I can say without upping the rating.

The most diverse changes occurred in the power fluxes between the factions. The Dragonites changed from a small, backwater faction with some good financial ties into a fortressed, military power with some very good financial ties and the populace to drive that economy. The Believers turned from a frigid, small cult like society into a blossoming following of the religiously fanatic: meaning many survivors of the Great Vendetta. Given that the Believers still had difficulties with trade and industry, but they were well off given their population influx.

It would be another 78 years before another spike in the ripples of history would occur. This one alone was pretty boring in comparison to the sky rovers crashing down into the walls of New Jericho as the mind worms caused the western walls to scream their blood curdling screams of agony and the battleships gave each other hell not three kilometers out; the battle for New Jericho was seared into thousands of minds as a hellish three weeks. Nothing but politics and population movements occurred over the next 78 years, but history is compromised of several parts. If you don't understand the the social movements during times of peace then the wars and battles make absolutely no sense.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 4th, 2011: Now how about them apples? I'm just steam rolling right through these chapters tonight. Hopefully I'll get chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 done too before I decide to crash out on my bed before another long day of work. I would have had most of those done already if I didn't decide to drop by work and see if they needed help; they did. So idiot me stays at work for three hours and no progress is made on these stories. WHY? Review...?  
**


	10. When Mind Worms Attack!

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

It was in the year 2585 that the ripples of the world began to rise and spread. The University was no longer a major power. It had been reduced into a moderate power from its' repeated losses.

At the same time, the Spartans were no longer a major power anymore either for they had also been reduced into a moderate power.

The Believers were a weak power, but at least they were no longer an infinitesimal power.

The Hive was also a weak power, but it had always been a weak power. It just didn't have the drive to push its borders to the size needed to be considered a moderate power.

The Morganites were a moderate power themselves. With much of their original land reclaimed they were up against the Spartans as the largest faction. Alas, with much of their territory being in the Great Wastes of desert on the eastern continent, they were not a major power because they had no way to support such power.

The Gaians were a moderate power as they had remained the most steady faction thus far.

The Peacekeepers were a weak power regaining stability.

The Pherals were the only infinitesimal power as they had to give away much of what they had every year.

Finally we come to the Dragonites who were considered on the border between weak and moderate.

In layman's terms, the **power** sorted out as thus in able-bodied soldiers:

1st: Spartans- 17.3 percent

2nd: University- 16.8 percent

3rd: Morganites- 15.9 percent

4th: Dragonites- 15 percent

5th: Gaians- 11.4 percent

6th: Hive- 9.1 percent

7th: Peacekeepers- 5.6 percent

8th: Believers- 4.8 percent

9th: Pherals- 4.1 percent

While the **territory** sorted out as thus in terms of square kilometers:

1st: Morganites- 19.4 percent

2nd: Spartans- 19.3 percent

3rd: University- 14.3 percent

4th: Peacekeepers- 14.2 percent

5th: Gaians- 13.9 percent

6th: Pherals- 9.5 percent

7th: Hive- 3.6 percent

8th: Believers- 3 percent

9th: Dragonites- 2.8 percent

Then there were was the credits earned per year which was calculated as **growing wealth**:

1st: Morganites- 4,038 credits

2nd: Dragonites- 3,152 credits

3rd: Peacekeepers- 2,994 credits

4th: Believers- 1,098 credits

5th: University- 812 credits

6th: Spartans- 534 credits

7th: Gaians- 498 credits

8th: Hive- 59 credits

9th: Pherals- negative 309 credits

And the **trade tonnage** which each nation exported each year:

1st: Morganites- 7.89 million tonnes

2nd: Peacekeepers- 6.12 million tonnes

3rd: Dragonites- 6.09 million tonnes

4th: Hive- 3.57 million tonnes

5th: Spartans- .99 million tonnes

6th: University- .12 million tonnes

7th: Gaians- .058 million tonnes

8th: Believers- .049 million tonnes

9th: Pherals- .0002 million tonnes

Trade continued much as it had before the first Dragonite Vendetta of 2474, where much of the world was enjoying a prosperity. Trade lanes were wide open and helping to keep the world fed and clothed. As no alliances in the post-Great Vendetta era were tolerated, there was a single peace treaty between all the factions. It outlined simple trade procedure and conduct with other factions.

Industry was one of the big booms of the time. The Morganites, Hive, and Dragonites were the major sources for all household and business items. They convened together even in their own smaller Council, called E.C.T. or the East Chiron Trade. There the leaders of their respective factions decided standards for the global industry.

Military was not one of the big booms. If anything, invasion squads were stripped down to their bones in budget and equipment. Most military became militias. Defense squads prepared in strategic locations throughout bases. Only the Spartans and the Dragonites kept up an active military force which was deemed as 'excessive' though the forces were the rag-tag teams of what remained after the Great Vendetta. Together, they even headed a different Council called T.L.P. or Trade Lane Police. Where they spared a few cruisers and jets to keep the trade lanes open and free from freelance pirating.

Technology was also on the rise. Orbital space stations were being planned by most moderate and even weak powers. The closest were the University-Morganite joint cooperation. The ones behind that, were the Dragonite team, which planned for more living space fortresses in space than science or industry orbitals. Then in a distant third were the Gaians hoping to give a boost to their industry without hurting the planet. In an even more distant fourth was the Peacekeeper-Hive joint cooperation, which was still laying the groundwork and squabbling over distant injuries done to one another.

In essence there were four major councils you had to refer yourself to, outside of your base, district, and faction laws and regulations. These four set the standards for their parts.

1st: The World Council

2nd: The U.N. Charter Board

3rd: The East Chiron Trade

4th: The Trade Lane Police

These four covered Trade, Industry, Human Rights, and the whole deal. Technology was deemed to be too versatile in order to set any single set of principles not already covered by another council. The Trade Lane Police didn't count for Military, and any sort of military force formed to keep the factions in line would be torn apart mercilessly by the World Council.

These are the mere statistics and general going ons for the world. Let me describe the juicy stuff.

The next ripple in the history of time was not what most might have expected. In the middle of the Great Ruins of Chiron, just north of the Believer territory, satellite images picked up the beginnings of some work being done. Structural work.

The Gaians were the first to bring an outcry at this, which was _clearly_ the Believers building a base on the last major mind worm bloom. The world was skeptical when the Believers outright _denied_ anything to do with it. No new faction could be made, the World Council kept a close eye on the last small islands out there on available and unclaimed land.

The idea was simple, send in a reconnaissance team and find out what was going on. Simple right? It turned out to be wrong.

Only a single member of that team survived long enough to return to a Believer outpost. His name is Ethan Huban. He lived for another 200 years as nothing but a shuddering lifeless mass in a museum to be poked, prodded, and gawked at by the the scientific and historical communities.

A new reconnaissance team was then sent with some of the last die hard military squads to probe the area. They returned with some terrible news for the world. The mind worms weren't making structures. They were the structures. The closest they could tell from one of the final results, was that the eight centimeter worms were mutating and metamorphosing into 100 meter long worms. Currently, and fortunately, the metamorphosis was so extravagant that the mind worms were all asleep.

An idea had to be struck while the iron was hot or the entire western continent would be under the ceaseless worry of being under an attack from the kind of creature that had never been dealt with before. The only good news? The new worms _hated _salt water and it caused their outer shells to burn like an acid had poured on them.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 4th, 2011: Alrighty boys and toys! This completes chapter 10's edit. That mean only chapters 11, 12, and 13 remain as I already did chapter 14 before I did chapter 10. Don't ask me why, just read it in the Author's Note in chapter 14. Anyway, I decided to add some new material to the lists I originally made to this story. It's not necessarily 'realistic', but I don't really know what is when it comes to the numbers I spewed out for the new lists. With that said, I think I'll just read some fanfiction for my own pleasure now instead of doing a few more edits tonight. I mean...it's already 3 a.m. I have to get up in a couple of hours to take care of the screaming baby. Why am I talking to you weirdos again? Oh right...REVIEW!  
**


	11. The Great Plan

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

In 2585 mind worms began to change in the Great Ruins. If they were allowed it was estimated that they could cover distances of up to 100 kilometers a day. The entire western continent would be under siege for decades, or maybe only years as the new mind worms ran down the neck of the western continent. This brought about a natural question, 'what could you possibly do to stop that apocalyptic besiegement?'

The scientific team that was sent to study the mind worms could only guess that it would take the mind worms a total of five years to fully mature. So they had five years to get something done. The plan that was proposed, was nothing short of impossible by the scales that the humanity had thus far completed.

A long canal would be built from the Northern Ocean above the western continent's head down the 500 km to the Great Ruins. There, a large moat would be built around the Great Ruins. To keep things in check and to keep an active eye on the situation, a base would be built on gigantic legs, far too tall for the new mind worms to push over or climb up. The only entry to the base would be by air. No bridge of any kind could be made over the moat. If the bridge failed, the mind worms could cross and all of their efforts would be for naught.

When no other plans were presented that would be viable and reliable the Morganites, the Hive, and even the Dragonites pushed their economies for this only solution. They would build the materials needed for this large operation and expected some _minor_ reparations for their expenses from the World Council within 50 years of completion.

With the industrial powers building the supplies the Spartans, the Believers, the Peacekeepers, and the University sent a majority of the selected 50,000 men of the world's 510,000 population to work on the project. They began with what equipment they did have by laying down the lines of what they would be building by taking new Tachyon equipment and blasting them into the soil.

As the Tachyon chain moved forward, the rest of the men began digging by terraformer, shovel, some even began to dig by hand in the initial desperation. The Gaians, as the faction with the most empaths, volunteered their empaths to steer the mind worms away from the work. The Gaians also began the major beginning to the mouth of this canal. They dug out behind almost 300 meters of soil to build the primary dam which would control the waters in the moat and canal. Should the future World Council ever vote to lower the oceanic levels, then some means of retaining the harmful salt water would be desperately needed.

This was the life of the nine factions for five years: build that canal and moat.

By the year 2587, things were looking great. The dam was complete and its' flood gates worked, having been tested shortly after completion. The soil on the other side had been disposed of, leaving only the dam to hold back the salty water of the Northern Ocean. Before allowing the waters to flood into the canal, the 300 meter wide canal was laid with a compact cement which didn't break down under weathering: permi-cement.

The canal had come to the point where it had reached the Great Ruins. It was a thing to be celebrated! From there the digging crew split into two teams, one going one way while the other half going the other way. To get things in proper working order and to avoid the flood waters breaking down anything in the moat from the long, high velocity journey from the ocean to the Great Ruins a second dam was built at the opening where the canal split into two ways. This was decided in order to keep the flooding waters from having to start from a great distant place in case the time came close while the mind worms were awakening and no flood waters yet kept them at bay. Then there was a third construction team. It was the smallest team to be sure because no one wanted to be in the Great Ruins, but a team of 5,000 was building the six large towering legs to support the base in the Great Ruins.

Sounds exciting doesn't it?

This work continued on for another two years, so that in 2589, the canal was completely around the Great Ruins and a team of 5,000 men were inspecting the permi-cement that had been laid in the moat, five of the six legs were entirely completed, and the second dam was ready to be opened. This sounds like a moment when things go wrong, right?

You're very astute if you picked that up. The mind worms finished maturing. The flood gates of the second dam were opened quickly when communication was lost with the reconnaissance team, and sadly 2,000 lives were still in the canals when the water rushed upon them. They were lives lost in vain as the matured mind worm that was spotted died within the hour after a Tachyon squad blasted the thing to kingdom come. It was an early bird and no other matured mind worms were spotted.

With the canals filled, the dams were given a ghost crew as the major work turned into building the observation base.

Within the year and just in time to celebrate 2590, the six towering legs were finished and machined together at the top to be more stable. A platform was placed on this machine work, 250 meters by 250 meters. Now, the world celebrated as they had never done so before.

The work was finished. The Hive embraced the Peacekeepers as brothers. The University embraced the Spartans as lovers. Only one faction seethed in anger. For only one faction had lost 2,000 lives due to carelessness and panic. Someone had intentionally failed to notify the Dragonite crew of the opened dam and it had cost them 2,000 of their elite soldiers. The Dragonites seethed in anger. On the outside they seemed to take the success in stride; but, on the inside, they felt a pool of festering hatred.

All that remained to be done with the joint project was to build the actual base atop the platform, and to build the smaller, tripod legs for the dams so their own crew could get into the dam and work it, without opening the facility to the attack of the mind worms in the bloom.

The observation base was built on six legs that were 500 meters tall. That's half a kilometer. In respect, an adult male might be 2 meters tall. The tripod legs that were going to be built for the dams were 200 meters tall, with a much smaller machine works to keep them stable, and it would only need a smaller platform.

Out of the 47,000 lives left, remember that 2,000 were lost due to the early release of the second dam, and 1,000 were lost from accidents and attacks and the like. Out of the 47,000 left, only 9,000 remained to continue building. 8,000 of that 9,000 were Dragonites, and almost the entire crew planned for the dams, and the observation base were Dragonite. Few acknowledged the strength that the Dragonites actually held, so giving them the opportunity to run something wasn't seen quite as it should have. It was seen more as 'Here ya go sonny...now yer a man!'. Needless to say, the Dragonites cheered. They were important!

The first observations of the new mind worms were made in 2593, by a University scientist by the name of Huban Ethan: no relation to the Ethan Huban who returned from the first mission to the Great Ruins.

Now things were nice and spiffy you might say. The entire project was up in working order. The dams had their raised platforms to keep the mind worms out, the observation base had full facilities, but there was one problem.

The Dragonites proposed a final measure to insure that the mind worms be kept inside. A 100 meter wall built all around the outside bank of the canal. Just outside of the canal itself, leaving not a meter of land left. The idea was, if need be, they could flood the Great Ruins in a dire situation.

Major opposition came from the Gaians, who spoke of such an idea as an atrocity, the Morganites, who spoke of such an idea as a waste of credits, and the University, who spoke of of the idea as a waste of test subject. The only ones who cared the most to support it? The Believers, the Spartans, and the Hive. Wanna take a shot as to why? Bingo! You guessed it! They were on the same continent. In a 'dire' situation they would be the ones to pay for a lack of a solution.

However, with Morgan as the Planetary Governor his single veto caused the idea to come to a crashing halt. Not even the offer for the Dragonites to fund the _entire_ thing could persuade their votes.

So should you ever decide to picnic in the Great Fungal Bloom just on the banks of the Great Canal you might just get a glimpse of a 100 meter long mind worm; or, you might become eaten alive before you get to see the damn thing. Oh joy!

**(Story)**

**AN: August 4th, 2011: Well now that I've actually gotten some sleep, here is yet another edit to this story! If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm going to finish editing this story before I move on to _To Be a Mountain Face_ as I'm still trying to think of some inspiration for that story. Do you guys even appreciate this work or what?**


	12. When Walls Come Crashing Down

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

By 2601 the new mind worms had become less and less of a household topic. Eight years since the first spotting that wasn't immediately killed off. Now the observation base, New Hope, was having less and less of a use to the normal circuit of society. So everyone but the Dragonites and the University pulled out their participation in the project little by little until they were the only two left actively keeping the new mind worms at bay and under observation.

It was not entirely surprising when the Hive pulled their participation, as the mind worms would have difficulty burrowing into their mines anyway. It was a surprise, however, when the Spartans and the Believers signed a joint union of emergency defense in case the new mind worms escaped. It was not technically an alliance, and thus it was not overturned or condemned by the World Council.

However, the University didn't trust their Dragonite brethren in the same room as them. The Dragonites were too friendly. Being as astute as they were they picked up on the problem, but you can't send someone away because they're _too friendly_. It would be bad publicity for the University, and the Dragonites kept the whole thing running. It was Dragonite equipment and Dragonite technicians which allowed University scientists to observe the mind worms and do overt studies on them.

In those eight years however, the mind worms seemed to mature only once more, a few years after birth. They grew up to a length of 135 meters. Now the observation base was always on alert if a few mind worms came around the legs again. Just in case they needed to evacuate quickly.

There was more construction going on, even if the world wasn't aware of it. The Dragonites had been 8,000 of the 9,000 to remain in the final finishing touches on the project. When it was time to go, 500 remained with some of the advanced equipment. Their first task was to build an underwater tunnel between the two dams. This in itself was no biggie. It was in the original plan, but it had been scraped due to time constraints. They had to build when no one was paying attention under the cover of darkness. Even the entrances had to be concealed until the Dragonites officially made their move.

The two dams were very similar. They were like any normal dam, but at a certain level most of it came up in the form of a floodgate leaving a single thick pillar in the middle to support its weight. Of course there were supports closer to the banks as well, but they weren't as crucial. Now the floodgates were pretty much always kept closed to keep in the water. The rains filled it back up if it ever seemed to diminish or the gates would open up again in the rare event that the water levels seemed to be lowering to 'dangerous' depths.

Then the 500 Dragonite men that remained built a shaft down this central pillar, and they installed a platform elevator. When that was done they worked themselves down a further 75 meters below the bottom of the canal, and then they dug straight for one another. They accomplished this bit in just five years. Then they reinforced the walls of this connection. It was now 2606 and the juicy details began as the Dragonites became more invigorated in their defiance.

One team went to the observation base and stole away to the machine works. There they began to burrow their way down through the center of the pillar until they were the canal's depth deep, and installed a platform elevator. This took this team the majority of three years to complete. The other team worked on a tunnel that would connect the new shaft and the first tunnel system connecting all major projects which kept the large mind worms at bay.

For eight long years this is what they were working on deep underground. On the surface, the world was returning to its' state of bliss. Only the military was given a bit bigger budget; just in case the mind worms broke free of their cage. The Pherals had even managed to pay off 1,500,000 of the credits they owed as reparations in ninety-five years. They were growing but very slowly.

The University, behind closed doors, could not convince the world that the Dragonites were up to something. Nobody wanted to believe it. They were too nice, too giving for that. They always had been. Besides, if the Dragonites really were up to something then they held great potential to do worse than the Great Vendetta due to the impenetrable Great Wall which defended them. The world's population of 590,000 couldn't take that sort of beating again.

So in their own secret way the University prepared. They began to re-equip themselves, armed to the full and ready for war. Though their ships didn't set sail and their jets didn't take flight, they had the navy and air force they once held: ready to be used if necessary.

For another ten years this underground work would continue. In addition to isle of Dexamenus turning more and more into a fortressinette. A gigantic military structure. Underneath the high cliffs of the Dexamenus, the Dragonites were building bunkers and bases and labs and more. Everything away from the eyes of the datalinks or the satellites. To the satellites everything looked normal.

At the Great Ruins, with an additional ten years, everything was starting to come together. With the long tunnel system between the observation base and the first dam, the 500 men began to dig outward. Gigantic hollow places were formed, and then fashioned into rooms. By the end of ten years, the living quarters, the labs, and the outside ring, a tunnel that ran around the outside bank of the canal was complete. It was however no where near done.

Since the World Council would not allow them to build a wall in public, then they would build the wall underneath the ground. They would give it the same kind of mechanics that operated their own Great Wall around the isle of Dexamenus and the space needed to operate the whole thing.

Such an action would put them at odds with the University, the Morganites, and the Gaians. Which, after a bit of killing, would put the Dragonites in sole control of the entire Large Mind Worm project. The dams and the observation deck would be theirs. Given enough time. According to the Universities mind, say six weeks, the Dragonites could drain the entire canal and let the mind worms free.

By the year of 2611, the World Council was beseeched by the project head, conveniently a Dragonite, to allow to put two large Tachyon cannons on the first dam facing outwards and the second dam facing inwards. The first dam would prevent anyone mad enough to try and wreck the project or break in. The second dam would be a means of safety for the dam workers from the mind worms. Opposed only by the University, the measure was passed which gave room for another 1,000 Dragonite workers to slip into the underground base. It didn't take long for the cannons to be attached. Just five weeks and the crew dispersed once more.

However, the University began to get more suspicious. If the cannons were meant for something else, perhaps the Dragonites planned to take control of the entire thing? Well...yeah they already knew that. Just extra security then? It seemed there was more to it than that, but no way to be sure besides to tell their men to be extra cautious.

Given another twenty years, and the year was 2631, the world was ripe for the picking. Satellite images out of no where on a single blip recognized a solid structure surrounding the outside of the canal banks. Further more, it was noted that the Great Wall returned to active status, its cannons at full mast. It took less than five minutes for the University to try and contact the observation base with nothing but static as the reply.

The University called for an immediate convention of the World Council. There they pointed an accusing finger at the Dragonites, who were 'too busy' to come in person. There, in front of the entire World Council, the leader of the Dragonites revealed himself for the first time: Mogul Brianbacks, an earth born like themselves.

His face was clean shaven and his hair slicked back. He looked much more grand than he did as a cook on the S.S. Unity. He was in the Dragonite military uniform of pinks and greens with an emblazoned Dragon on his back. His words were simple, "For the 2,000 you carelessly murdered and forgot."

That was all he said. Not another word. So in the two corners of the world stood two Great Walls of Dragonite fashion. Each large and imposing. Both had never been penetrated. The Spartans had broken a hole in the original once, but they had been crushed soon after.

When a fleet attempted to the sail through the first dam, they were obliterated by the Tachyon cannons. When an army tried to march up to the wall they were decimated by the mind worms in the bloom. When an air strike was attempted to land forces onto the platform, the switched into the defense mode set up by the Dragonites and brought the jets out of the sky.

All three ways to fight back against the Great Wall failed. They failed utterly and miserably. It was at this time as the Spartans held less and less trust with the Dragonites, that they convened secretly with the University on combining forces to stop this matter altogether.

When they were agreed, they brought it to the Gaians, the Believers, and the Hive. Against two very powerful military forces and their own need to save their necks, they naturally agreed. The Morganites refused to agree, and even went to the point of calling such an idea a pact which had been outlawed by the Treaty of the Great Vendetta's articles.

When the Peacekeepers were confronted with the idea they shook their head. There was no way in hell they were going back up against the Dragonites. Not without the _entire_ seven other factions behind such a plan. The Pherals couldn't agree more. Neither Peacekeeper, Pheral, or Morganite wanted to enter a vendetta or war with the Dragonites. Especially not with how their current military budgets were.

So the Dragonites held control in their two pockets of the world for a whole year before something was done again. In the year 2632, the Morganites agreed with a large bribe. They in turn began to crank out military weapons like never before. With the Morganites in on it, and 560,000 people up against 80,000, it shouldn't be too difficult. The seeds we sow eh?

With the agreement settled with the Peacekeepers and the Pherals to agree into the situation as well, the entire world was up against the Dragonites. What tipped the odds in the Dragonites favor? They had built a single solitary tunnel between the isle of Dexamenus and the Great Ruins. A very large tunnel. With room enough for eight mag tubes running all the way side by side between the two Great Walls deep underground. With the amazing accomplishment, the Great Wall of the Great Ruins, became fully manned with 20,000 of the 80,000 people of Eye of the Dragon. Jobs became very simple. You were either a soldier, a doctor, a technician, or a worker. There was no room for anything else. Industry boomed with this simple economy, and even agriculture boomed with the introduction of automatic harvesters. A farm that ran itself. Workers found themselves working on every little thing. Tubes to connect everything, support to keep everything up, rooms to house everyone.

Mogul promised his people, 'A wave of prosperity to follow their hardships'. In reality, he made their lives wonderful. They were better fed, better clothed, everyone had a job. In a very true sense of the word it was a utopia. The shortcoming? In order to have a utopia you must erase all individualism.

The Hive themselves became almost green with envy as they watched the Dragonites through satellite images build a society that truly functioned.

By the time the factions were ready to start their military planning, seven long years had passed. Given the true beginning to the Second Great Vendetta in the mission year of 2639.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 5th, 2011: Just one more chapter to go now! _Eye of the Dragon_ is just about complete for your improved enjoyment of reading it...stop snickering! GAH!**

**Anyway, I'm really tired at the moment and will probably just move on to reading fanfiction as opposed to editing it. It may be until tomorrow that I finish the last of my edits to this story. Your reviews would be appreciated...jerks...  
**


	13. Lions Tigers and Wedding Rings?

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

Now, we are taught that with superior training and superior weaponry, you can in an overall geometric effect defeat a far more extensive force. Military is good and all, while Technology bores most of us to sleep, and Industry is more for the Moguls and upstarts; it is the societies themselves we have skipped out on.

What happened in the many years between 2474 and 2639? I've mentioned the years of hardship and the great labor the people endured. I've pointed out who was aligned with whom, and generally how and why they were doing it that way. But the question that comes to my mind is, "Have I told you about the drones themselves?"

They've been labeled as drones, ants, workers, technicians and these are but titles. We very rarely go beyond the impersonal view of Dragonites or Morganites. Gaians or Hive. We tend to take the personality of the leader and overlap it onto the entire faction. This has been the general stir for many atrocities and at a diachronic time: hate crimes.

You ask a poor ignorant fellow what he thinks of Germany today, and he shouts about damned Nazis! You beseech a poor slow person what he thinks about Federate Russia, and he screams about Commies!

So let me tell you today the story about two dro-...what? You don't want to hear about them? Well thats just silly! Everybody wants to hear about the drones! I mean... the people!

Fine. We'll cover more war.

Now, in the year 2639, the entire world was against the Dragonites. The war effort was orchestrated like this; the Morganites and the Hive would gear up their economies to crank out whatever material the others needed; the University would give their data to them to build nothing but the best the world had to offer; the Gaians, with the equipment made by the Morganites, would reveal their empath army of mind worms, isles of the deep, and chiron locusts; the Spartans and the Believers, along with a moderate amount of detachments from the Pherals and the Peacekeepers, would make up the bulk of the army, navy, and air force of the United People Against Mogul Brianbacks! UPAMB. One wonders if they had any thoughts of trying to spell NAPALM at one point.

By the year 2639, the Dragonites had overhauled themselves. The tunnel connecting the two great walls was fully operational and kept the smaller of the two fed and clothed. Even kelp farms were becoming common place off the island. The Dragonites were a little worried when the Morganites took the bribe, so they started up their trump card. They began building a secret base...no where near one of the two great walls...but deep beneath the central continents surface. While most of their tunnel systems were perhaps 800 meters deep most of the time, and the Boreholes usually went to about five kilometers, this secret base was built over twenty kilometers deep. Deep enough for the average temperature to be eighty-nine Celsius. For those who don't understand metric, thats roughly 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit.

When they were done, they would transport a single great mind worm and breed it. They would threaten to unleash their children upon the world, from stopping up the great canal on the western continent, to having the great mind worms climb towards the surface on the middle and eastern continent.

However UPAMB didn't know about this secret project. They heard only passing rumors about a trump card named Betty. They in turn turned their sights to the smaller of the two great walls. They would have to dismantle the smaller of the two before they could attack the larger one. The Battle of Siroquis was just the beginning of what the entire island could do: over 100 years ago. And if the Dragonites were anything, they were Progressionists.

The first battle was a small one on the outside of the Great Wall of the Great Canal on the outside of the Great Ruins...wait...what is it with these people and naming everything great? Anyway, the battle was between a small reconnaissance group and some mind worms. The outcome clearly showed...that entire the bloom went, or the Gaians had to be there every step of the way.

When an airborne reconnaissance group was attempted to appease the Gaians from just stepping into the fight, they were blasted out of the sky, what they saw had shocked the pilots bad enough to send them convulsing however. Leaving the technicians on the ground receiving their transmissions to hear, "Urgh!" and my personal favorite, "Mommy!"

So, it was decided that either a large navy and air force joint mission would have to be undertaken, or the Gaians would have to be the bulk of the ground forces. Unanimously they voted for a joint attack by all three branches. So Operation Overlord began falling into place. In the meantime, most of the fighting actually took place in space.

In orbit, the University had seven satellites, one colony, and one missile pod. The Morganites had two satellites and a missile pod and several nessus mining stations, while the Spartans had eight missile pods, and a few nessus mining stations, and the Gaians had seven collective farms and a single satellite.

On the other hand, the Dragonites had four colonies in space that were armed to the teeth, that were extra protected against missile pods, three satellites, and a few nessus mining stations along with a few collective farms.

In space, the Dragonites were self-sufficient. On the other hand, the others were not. The 5,000 Dragonites in space could easily beat the other spacial objects out of orbit. Indeed, that is quite what happened. The Dragonites of 5,000 were up against 2,000 UPAMB citizens and soldiers. The fighting first took place on nessus prime, where the Dragonite soldiers ambushed the Morganites, and Spartans through tunnels and quickly overtook the stations, leaving them without their extra minerals for the war economy, and giving the Dragonites more minerals to gear up for theirs.

In early 2640, the Dragonites made their next move in raiding and commandeering the collective farms of the Gaians. This cut into the already slightly starving world's food source. The alternative for UPAMB became kelp farms. Lots of kelp farms.

At the same time on the ground, a satellite photo took very quick rapid pictures of the ground work being laid inside the great canal. Where were the great mind worms? The answer was simple, either the Dragonites had killed them, or brought them underground somewhere. As it were, the great ruins in just a few short months times became the great base. A base that spread out over 20km. No...not a great base. It was a city. A real city like from Earth. Only it was entirely a military, self-sufficient city. Then it was a base right? But it was too large to be considered a 'base'. Alas, the semantics mattered to very few in these troubled times.

Since the great wall of the great base might very well be impossible to breach at the time, UPAMB turned their eyes to the first great wall of the isle of Dexamenus. In its active stage, and the sound of hammers pounding clearly, it was clear the work crews were back in action. Already its imposing walls held several hundred towers, connecting cables and new Tachyon cannons. That had been the game then?

The bigger scheme of getting the Tachyon cannons onto the dams had been to replicate the technology. The beginnings of them could be seen on both of the great walls, with much smaller ones in towers all across the land. Anti-air. No doubt about it. The Dragonites had been mobilizing for this for a long time. All because...2,000...lives? Perhaps that was the situation? Eureka the leaders cried out. They sought out the word of Mogul Brianbacks immediately, and offered him reparations for the 2,000 lives lost due to their carelessness.

Mogul looked at his fellow leaders with a tight grin, so they had caught on had they? He leered at them, "My terms are simple; hand over the person responsible for those who killed off 2,000 of my people." Their minds worked feverishly. Who was in charge back then?

When understanding flashed into their eyes his twisted smile only seemed to grow, "Lady Deidre Skye, the woman in charge and responsible for _all_ of her people's actions: even accidents."

Could they do that? Could they simply hand over a fellow leader like meat and hope to the gods, or in Miriam's case god, and hope everything turned out alright? Was appeasement the OK path?

It would have to be. Deidre Skye resigned herself to her fate and spoke to her people in the middle of 2640, "For the shameful recklessness of our people, 2,000 Dragonite lives vanished in vain during the construction of the great canal. It is with a heavy heart that I have resigned myself to the people of Eye of the Dragon to be held responsible for our actions."

So it was in late 2640 that Lady Deidre Skye went to the isle of Dexamenus. No one was happy about it and everyone wondered if she would be ok. Would she receive a fair trial? Would she even get a trial?

Much rumor and speculation went around freely as the world waited in wonder for two years. Two very long years. While a ceasefire had been called, no actual truce had been declared so both military sides were arming themselves and their territory for an upcoming second great vendetta. Out of the 680,000 people, 86,000 were Dragonites. All of them held speculation as to what was going on.

At the end of those two years Lady Deidre Skye returned from her imprisonment and seemed to just _glow_. The elderly didn't need to wonder why. Deidre Skye had remained chaste for over 500 years: half of a millennium she had refused to have sex. On the S.S. Unity, one cook had always had his eye on her, and given two years time? He'd no doubt changed her view on the subject of sex.

They were more surprised by the wedding ring than of Deidre's newfound passions.

**(Story)**

**AN: August 7th, 2011: Well there we are folks! That is the final update for this story! I'm going to post the time line and the 'THE END' chapters within the next 15 minutes. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it over the past four years in various sporadic moments of inspiration and depression. I always enjoy reviews (still whoring for reviews)...**


	14. Epilouge

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**(Story)**

Despite the fall out of the calamity, the second great war continued. There were several issues nobody was sure about. Were the Dragonites and the Gaians going to merge now? Would they separate if their leaders divorced? Could they divorce? Would they have children? Who would lead! More importantly, how would the two societies mix?

On the other hand, the peace conference was called short when Mogul stated he would sign no treaty, he had never declared vendetta. The missing workers from the New Hope observation base had been dropped off in University territory twenty-nine years ago. So...what did the UPAMB members do? They had declared vendetta socould they just call it off without losing face? Would it mean they had declared defeat?

On the more interesting note, would the Dragonites be made to dismantle their war machine?

All to be found out next time, in '_When Gaians throw an Orgy!'_

**(Story)**

**AN: August 4th, 2011: I know it's really weird that I just did chapter 14 and the author's announcement from a few months ago now instead of doing chapters 10, 11, 12, and 13 first**_, _**but I really just wanted to make some quick headway and I feel pumped to know that I have chapter 14 done now and only have four chapters to go. It really is just that important that I get all of this done right now so I feel better about myself and my writing. Why are you judging me? Wahhhhhh!**_  
_

_**Author's Announcements:**_

I know hardly anyone reads my profile (which wouldn't matter since it's out of date anyway), so I have posted these following announcements in all of my stories to let you formally know that I will be attempting to write chapters for most of my stories once again. I cannot guarantee anything, but I am most willing to make the effort.

That's the important part. Here come the details (your queue to leave if you want).

**Reasons Why I Haven't Been Writing:**

Well…geez, put me on the spot without time for cookies or milk. I haven't been writing mostly because of the combined dedications my life has required of me. In the time since I wrote _Memoirs of a Time Traveler_ I have done the following things, each further complicating my life as a burgeoning adult:

1. Began a polyamorous relationship.

2. Managed to get my girlfriend of five years pregnant.

3. Fought with the parents of the newest member of our 'Triad' in the Triangular relationship.

4. Finally given up the idea of trying to treat both of my girlfriends equal in public status and married my pregnant girlfriend (to avoid the evil state of Indiana's bureaucracy).

5. Had my mother-in-law move in to help us with bills.

6. Had a child whom we call Alex.

7. Managed to obtain a 35 hour job (which previously had been 20 hours since after #3 but before #4).

8. Have continued my undergraduate education throughout the entire process.

**Reasons Why I Will Begin Writing Anew:**

These are the reasons why I'm more optimistic about a renewed writing!

1. Resigned from my job since my boss is a douche and was probably going to fire me anyway.

2. Finals are over!

3. Looking for another job and taking care of Alex, but still plenty of free time from the additional hours (some 70 in my week) which have been freed up recently.

4. Because I hate to see 'abandoned' on my stories!

I look forward to presenting everyone with wonderful new material on old ideas. Let it be known, however, that not all of my lack of posting is from a lack of writing. I have written three chapters for various stories when my computer crashed around seven months ago. Don't blame me, blame the elves.

So, without further ado, I bid you welcome into a new age of writing by Ultimagu.


	15. Time Line

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**AN: Alright folks! Here is the story's time line for you to catch up on so you can easily remember what happened before you try reading the next story. It's recommended with my style of historical writing that you read the time line.**

**2060: **The U.N. Unity takes off from Earth, swinging through the Inner Solar System to make the 40 year voyage towards the binary star system, Alpha Centauri.

**2100:** Planetfall.

**2134:** Believer-Spartan Vendetta caused by sudden border tensions. Neither side believed that the other had truly made the terrible journey during Planetfall and denounced the other as a trick of the mind worms.

**2135: **A ceasefire is called for the Believer-Spartan Vendetta when contact is established with Lal who affirms that more than one faction survived Planetfall. Corazon refuses to let go of the territory taken from the Believers during the brief vendetta.

**2219:** The Peacekeepers make a move to spread across the Hercules Channel to the tail of the Western continent where the Hive already dwells within their mines. This initiates the beginning of the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta.

**2289: **The Spartans intervene with a heavy military presence to end the Hive-Peacekeeper Vendetta which Corazon claims to have interfered with Spartan trade.

**2349: **The Morganites take the opportunity to invade the northern part of the Central continent to take hold of its' rich resources. The Peacekeepers fight hard but cannot maintain control with the limits placed upon them by their previous vendetta.

**2382: **The University launches a surprise attack on the Morganites after a mysterious sinking of the U.M.S. (University Military Ship) Nautilus. 150,000 lives are lost in the war, both sides sinking to desperate measures to win by the end.

**April 2474:** 10,000 citizens from each of the factions (Spartan, Hive, Believer, Peacekeeper, Gaian, University, and Morganite) declare independence and move to the Isle of Dexamenus. The World Council officially recognizes this independence after a vote despite Lal's and Zakrarhov's lobbying to crush the independence movement.

**August 2474: **The Peacekeepers send a patrol fleet to invade the Isle of Dexamenus a few months after the declaration of independence in a very short Dragonite-Peacekeeper Vendetta. The Peacekeepers are thwarted and made a mockery of after the battle. Lal is forced to back off and sign over terms which claims responsibility for the war and agrees to reparation costs of 500 energy credits.

**2475:** The major construction is complete on Dragon's Keep, the northern base, and Dragon's Den, the southern and capital base, of Eye of the Dragon.

**2485: **The Second Dragonite-Peacekeeper Vendetta is wrought after a failed attempt to blame the Dragonites for a sinking cruiser. The ensuing battles cause devastating losses for the Peacekeepers and they are no longer considered a real rival to the University dominion in the far North. The Peacekeepers are on the verge of civil war.

**2500: **The Great Vendetta of 2500 erupts as a shift between Loyalist Peacekeepers try to reassert Lal as the head of a united Peacekeeper faction and the Confederate Peacekeepers who refused Lal as their 'chosen leader'. The lines were evenly split between the Spartans, Confederates, Gaians, Believers and the University, Loyalists, Morganites, Hive. The only undeclared faction is that of the Dragonites who even refused to participate in the World Council debate and vote on the matter. The war begins with a world population of 728,000.

**2502: **The Spartans launch a massive invasion on the Isle of Dexamenus to, hopefully, begin hopping northward against each newly surrounded Loyalist territory. The Battle of Siroquis places the Spartans at a weak disadvantage in the world politics while the Loyalists are initially invigorated to launching their own doomed invasion of the Morganite lands. The fleeing Spartan forces poison the surrounding waters with spent fuel cells. The day's ending population is 697,000 where it had begun at 718,000. This is the single most bloody day in all of Chiron's history.

**2507:** The Great Vendetta comes to a silent halt as a peace treaty is formed which decrees that the 'Confederate Peacekeepers' are to be a free faction and be known as the Pherals. Small, post-vendetta skirmishes cause major world shift changes as the Morganites reclaim the their lost territory from the University, the Peacekeepers and Pherals push the University to the far northern shore of the central continent, and the Believers and the Hive push the inward on the Spartan monstrosity. Major trends pop up during this time indicating further changes down the road; the Believers and the Dragonites take in over 20,000 new citizens each who are fleeing their war-torn homelands. The World Council cannot undo the building of the Great Wall around the Isle of Dexamenus. The world population is reduced to 450,000 over the course of seven years.

**2585: **100 meter long mind worms are discovered in the Great Ruins at the head of the western continent. Work begins just a month later on a means to contain the giant mind worms. There is little real hope of containing the monstrous mind worms.

**2587:** The primary dam is complete and the canal has been completely dug out. A protective barrier is in the process of being laid to keep the waters from soaking into the soil.

**2589:** The 500 meter long canal is complete and the secondary dam is also completed. Five of the six towering legs for the observation base are complete and the permi-cement in the moat is being inspected when communication is lost with the reconnaissance team inside the Great Ruins. An emergency decision is made and 2,000 lives are lost in the moat as they were uninformed of the opening like the other 3,000 were. The early matured mind worm is eliminated within an hour of its' awakening.

**2500:** The entire project is complete and only the smaller platforms on the dams need to be built along with the proper facilities on top of the observation base 500 meters above the ground. The world celebrates for weeks after averting from that disaster.

**2593:** Huban Ethan makes the first observations of the new mind worms and observes that their increased mass has weakened their psychotic abilities. They could not even communicate with one another it seemed. The observed mind worm was not, surprisingly, killed off after much paranoid talk and debate in an emergency meeting of the World Council.

**2601:** All but the University and the Dragonites have pulled their participation in the securing and observation of the new mind worms.

**2606:** The Dragonites secretly complete an underwater tunnel connecting the primary and secondary dam. The University remains suspicious of their activities, but the Dragonites continue to be very cordial and polite.

**2609:** A shaft and tunnel are completed connecting the observation base, New Hope, to the the previously built tunnel system connecting the two dams. The world population is now 590,000.

**2619:** A base is partially complete beneath the Great Ruins which will moved upwards and lock in place around the defenses the Dragonites have been installing and keeping them maintenanced. Zakrarhov cannot convince any of his fellow faction leaders that the Dragonites are planning something terrible. The University has secretly rebuilt its' weapon stores to a pre-Great Vendetta state in order to better combat the sudden surprise attack of the Dragonites.

**2621:** Large Tachyon cannons are placed on the dams after financial approval by the World Council. Two are placed outward on the primary dam to defend it from anyone crazy enough to wreck into the dam, and two are placed inward on the secondary dam to defend the dam workers from the mind worms.

**2631:** The Dragonites openly take control of the Great Ruins and raise the base facilities and new Great Wall around the site. Mogul Brianbacks, leader of the Dragonites, makes his first public appearance to denounce the world faction leaders saying that his actions were for the 2,000 Dragonite lives murdered without a second glance. The University fails utterly in its' first attempt to penetrate the Great Wall around the Great Ruins.

**2632:** The Morganites are bribed into joining the effort against the Dragonites which leaves only the Peacekeepers and the Pherals who refuse to take part in the vendetta.

**2639:** Major military actions begin marking the true beginning of the Second Great Vendetta. The Peacekeepers and Pherals are even huddled into the war effort against the Dragonites. Meanwhile, the Dragonites are working fervently to build their society up before the enemy takes to their gates. Early skirmishes do not bode well for UPAMB (United Peoples Against Mogul Brianbacks) which consists of the University, Spartans, Peacekeepers, Pherals, Believers, Hive, Gaians, and Morganites. The self-sufficient Dragonites in space begin to assimilate the smaller UPAMB satellites and stations.

**2640: **The Dragonites commence major space operations to cripple UPAMB. UPAMB deducts, months after Mogul's initial statement to the World Council, that the 2,000 Dragonite lives lost during the construction with the large mind worms is the cause of this new, hostile Eye of the Dragon. Mogul offers his terms at one Deidre Skye to be held responsible for the death of 2,000 Dragonites.

**2642:** Deidre returns from her imprisonment on the Isle of Dexamenus and is discovered to now be married. The husband to the once chaste Deidre Skye is heavily implied to be Mogul Brianbacks himself. Such a union means that UPAMB would lose an entire faction, very close to the Isle of Dexamenus, which would now prove to hinder them further should the Second Great Vendetta come to fruitation.


	16. END

******AN: I do not own any part of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri universe except the crazy ideas I may write about for your viewing pleasure.**

**Well folks, this is what I call the 'END' chapter where I will post my responses to your reviews so it doesn't clutter up one of the chapters with 50 some review responses (I could only wish)...**

**Soon I will begin work on _When Gaians Throw an Orgy_ as well as continuing my work on _Haremization_, and _To Be a Mountain Face_. I have already decided, for those interested in the Brianbacks series, that my later short stories _After Mogul_ and _Xenocide_ will be lengthened moderately to accommodate for the original plot lines I had inspired them to take. If that means two more chapters after edits then so be it.**

**Review Commentaries:**

**Ryuu9: **The Brianbacks series that I have been referring to is split into two parts: Brianbacks Series and the Alternative Brianbacks Series. The latter of the two takes place after _The End_ in the Brianbacks Series and follows Mogul's p.o.v. where _After Mogul_ simply moved on to Mogul's son Eric. Now, even stranger than your puzzlement, is that I haven't read or touched _After Mogul_ in nearly three years but I still remember the name of Mogul's son who lives for some 3,000-4,000 words in a short, condemned story I have tried so hard to sweep under the rug by creating the Alternative Series. Does that answer your question?


End file.
